5 days ago
- Business
- New Indian Express
TN's new mini bus scheme still remains a non-starter
CHENNAI: Despite high demand for transportation in Chennai and surrounding areas, the Mini Bus Scheme 2.0 that was launched on June 16 allowing private operators to run mini buses on routes up to 25km — risks repeating the same mistakes as the 1997 rollout.
The scheme was intended to provide bus connectivity across more than 25,000km of unserved areas across Tamil Nadu. Although the transport department has issued proceedings — a document granted by the RTO after the operator presents the bus — for over 2,000 routes, services have yet to start on more than 50% of these routes, according to industry sources.
Currently, mini buses are operational only on 1,200 routes that were migrated from the previous scheme and brought under the revised guidelines.
A field survey by TNIE in Chennai found that several sanctioned routes remain non-operational. While the transport department claims services have been launched on 10 routes, buses are actually running on only three.
In many areas, services either haven't begun or were discontinued shortly after starting. Even on routes where operations have commenced, only one round trip is being made daily — far below the 12 trips originally approved.
'Mini bus service operators may take time to begin ops'
Likewise, in areas outside Chennai, mini bus services were halted after just a few days to a week due to low earnings. Transport Commissioner Shunchonngam Jatak Chiru told TNIE that he will take up the matter with the district collectors.
