Tricity public transport faces crisis as 100 buses to be phased out and replacements delayed
Out of the 358 diesel buses on local routes, 100 will complete their 15-year service limit by Nov this year, and these will have to be phased out. "All of these are on the Tricity routes — Mohali and Panchkula districts — comprising 80 per cent of the total buses on these routes. Taking off these buses will leave a large number of Tricity passengers using public transport in the lurch," said a UT official.
"This is more so as the CTU is the mainstay of the public transport system in the Tricity, with Mohali having no Tricity bus service available and Panchkula having a very limited local bus service. When these 100 buses are taken off the road, there will be a consequent reduction in bus services within the Tricity."
The process to replace these 100 diesel buses with e-buses started a couple of years ago. "The buses were being purchased under a central govt scheme, and even the tendering process was completed last year. But since then, litigation plagued the execution of the tender. On July 2, there was a final judicial pronouncement expected to resolve the issue, but it didn't happen, and legal proceedings are still going on," said the official.
Meanwhile, a UT proposal to procure 100 e-buses by initiating the tendering process at its own level is pending with the ministry of home affairs (MHA). "Recently, the MHA got the nod from the ministry of housing and urban affairs (MoHUA) for the proposal. Thereafter, the MHA sent the proposal to the department of expenditure, ministry of finance," said the official.
The new 100 e-buses were to be ultra-low entry (ULE) vehicles of 12m length. The existing e-buses with CTU are 9m long and of low entry. The 100 buses are to be availed under the
PM e-Bus Sewa scheme
.
One option is to relax the norm for the 15-year rule on the service tenure of govt buses. "The central govt rules categorically stipulate taking out of service vehicles completing a 15-year tenure. But the department would propose to the competent authority to relax this norm for these 100 buses," said the official.
Another option the department is working on is to divert some of its long-route buses to Tricity routes. "Though it will help Tricity passengers, CTU long-route buses will suffer. CTU will also lose its long-route passengers to other carriers. It will entail major losses for the CTU," said the official.
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