This story is from December 3, 2016

25 new city buses to run on old routes

25 new city buses to run on old routes
(Representative image)
NAGPUR: Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) will begin operating first fleet of 25 new buses on five major old routes. The decision raises a big question on the civic body’s claim of encouraging public transport and making city bus service viable.
NMC is all set to launch new city bus service system from December 5. Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and union minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari will launch the service that would include country’s first ever ethanol-run buses at a programme to be held at Yeshwant stadium.

NMC plans to launch new service with 25 new buses that would include 10 ethanol-run green buses and 15 red medium-size red buses belonging to three operators. The 25 new buses will run from Sitabuldi to Kalmeshwar, Butibori, Pardi, Pipla Fata and Waddhamna. NMC has approval to run buses on 142 routes since 2007. Unfortunately, the existing operator Vansh Nimay Infraprojects (VNIL) failed to run buses on all routes to encourage public transport. Starbuses were running only on 47 routes including the five major ones mentioned above. In fact most buses run on these five routes.
It was expected the NMC would use the new buses on uncovered routes. NMC has now appointed Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System Ltd (DIMTS) as Integrated Bus Transport Manager (IBTM) operator for identifying routes, managing conductors, revenue and encouraging public transport. Still, it chose to run new buses on existing routes only.
An NMC official told TOI it was just a trial run and buses would be run on new routes shortly. “City transport committee along with IBTM operator is making a detailed plan which would take at least six months. Until then buses will run on old routes. Also, frequency of buses on five major routes is not sufficient to meet the demand,” he said.
Meanwhile, NMC has calculated a financial loss of Rs 100-120 crore/annum under new system. Earlier, NMC had estimated the loss at just Rs 32.12 crore/annum. Though service was poor, with VNIL the NMC did not suffer any financial loss in last nine years.

The NMC will eventually operate 487 buses including 55 ethanol-run, 237 existing buses to be taken from VNIL, 150 new medium-size buses and 45 new minibuses. NMC will pay four bus operators for procurement of new buses and cost of operation and maintenance. It will also pay to IBTM operator for its services but will keep entire revenue.
NMC estimates total expense of running the service at Rs 234 crore per annum and revenue at Rs 9.50-11 crore per month resulting in a loss of Rs 100-120 crore per annum.
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About the Author
Anjaya Anparthi

Anjaya Rajam Anparthi, 33, is a principal correspondent with The Times of India, Nagpur edition and looking after civic beat. He also likes to write stories from power and mining beats. He is a fond lover of city’s environment and highlight stories related to trees, greenery, rivers, lakes, sewage system, water treatment plants, and pollution-level. The issues related to civic amenities takes him to various parts of the city, slum areas, posh localities and meet citizens, social activists, NGOs, corporators and political leaders. Daylong visit to the NMC’s administrative offices makes him easy in learning various planning and developments of the city. He too likes to visit the developmental projects being undertaken under JNNURM Scheme once in a week. Maintaining a good contact with 145 corporators and officials, he like to highlight various issues related to the city spread in over 217 sq.km.

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