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While presenting the budget for year 2013-14, Mr. Chidambaram proposed to allot Rs 14873 crore for Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). He made it known that the buses sanctioned during 2009 to 2012 which amounted to 14000 have helped a lot with the transport. As a result, most of the allotted money will result in buying of more buses. It is proposed to give the public transport a boost of 10000 new buses during 2013-14. These new buses are mostly to ply in the hilly areas providing better and timely service.
It is also seen that many of the cities have already started placing orders for low floor buses as well as semi-low floor buses. It is assumed that they were just waiting on centre govt to provide the funding. Through this announcement the govt hopes to connect more areas with JNNURM as buses are still the most preferred means of transport.
Road Transports and the State Transport Undertakings have started procuring the buses under the JNNURM scheme for improving the structure of transport.
Ever since the Delhi rape case, there has been a need for better and safer public transport.
It has been asked by the centre govt to increase the number of state run govt buses. With this announcement the major manufacturers of buses like Tata Motors Ltd, Volvo buses India Pvt. Ltd and Ashok Leyland can expect an increase their sale of buses.
It is expected that besides centre govt providing Rs 15000 crore for this scheme, the state governments will invest Rs 10000 crore by themselves too.
Source-http://www.jnnurm.co.in
TNN |
BHOPAL: India’s longest Bus Rapid Transport System (BRTS) corridor was inaugurated in Bhopal on Friday and named after BJP patriarch, Atal Bihari Vajpayee Marg. The 24-km corridor was opened by chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Union urban development minister Kamal Nath, who was expected to launch the first Mybus, did not turn up.Bhopal Mayor Krishna Gaur sought naming of the corridor after Vajpayee in her inaugural speech. Minutes later, Chouhan made the announcement.
The lone Congress MLA in Bhopal, Arif Aqueel, boycotted the function as the party wanted the corridor named after former President, Shankar Dayal Sharma, who was born in Bhopal. After opening the BRTS, Chouhan went on an inauguration spree to beat the model code deadline. He launched projects of Rs 400 crore, which included a multilevel parking at Ibrahimpura, the Bhopal-Indore Volvo bus service, MyBus depot at Sant Hirdaram Nagar.
Speaking at the occasion, Chouhan blasted the Centre for inflation even as his government was providing “low-cost public transport”.
He also elaborated on the developmental works done by BJP government. “When Congress was in power, only Rs 5 crore would be earmarked for roads. Now more than Rs 2000 crore have been spent on road development,” he said.
He also promised to develop colonies for migrant rural workers to regularise old illegal colonies. The CM also granted Rs 15 crore to BMC for maintenance and functioning of BRTS corridor. Mayor-in-council member K M Soni said the zonal plan for AIIMS, New Market and Bairagarh was in the offing. “Bairagarh zonal plan would be unveiled next year,” he said.
TR-3 was among the buses unveiled on Friday which would cover the entire BRTS corridor from Misrod to Bairagarh. 26 AC buses were added to the existing fleet of low-floor buses bringing the total number to 225 buses operated along various routes in the city.
The 24-km long corridor would take around an hour in the dedicated corridor and the fare would be Rs 26, Soni said.
S. ANIL RADHAKRISHNAN |
Mission will provide funds for support infrastructure too
The Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) has sanctioned another 400 buses for the State to be operated under the JNNURM extended scheme.
For the State, it is a big disappointment, as it had pitched for 1,011 buses at an estimated cost of Rs.649.55 crore to extend the highly popular low-floor JNNURM buses to the remaining 12 districts. Since 2009, 313 buses have been sanctioned for the State. These ply in the State capital and Ernakulam under the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC).
The State is in receipt of the minutes of the Central Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee (CSMC) meeting, chaired by Union Urban Affairs Secretary Sudhir Krishna, in New Delhi on September 26 that cleared the 400 buses for the State, official sources told The Hindu. Among the 2,433 buses allotted to six States, Maharashtra has got the most (900), followed by Kerala and Rajasthan (286). The mission sanctioned 73 buses for Andhra Pradesh, and 50 each for Chhattisgarh and Puducherry.
In addition to the purchase of the buses, the mission will now provide funds to the State for support infrastructure such as bus depots as it wants to replicate the metro rail experience on buses to uplift the brand image of public transport by bus.
The Detailed Project Report for the procurement of the buses was made by Rajan Khobragade, Secretary (Urban Affairs), Local Self-government Department, and Kerala Sustainable Urban Development Project Director U.V. Jose before Mr. Krishna.
The main hurdle before the State is how to set up a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for operating and taking care of the buses procured with the JNNURM assistance.
The KSRTC has hinted that it is ready to hand over the 313 buses to the SPV.
Main condition
Setting up the SPV is the main condition put forward to the Local Self-government Department by the CSMC to release the first tranche of funds to the State under the JNNURM extended scheme.
The State had proposed to operate the buses in major towns and cities of 12 districts that were grouped under five clusters for smooth fleet operation.
A semi-low-floor non-air-conditioned bus (900-mm long) will cost Rs.30 lakh, semi-low-floor non air-conditioned bus (650 mm) Rs.40 lakh, and a premium standard air-conditioned bus Rs.90 lakh.
Compared to the scheme launched five years ago, intelligent transport system, upgrade of depots, and installation of central control room will form part of the JNNURM funding now
The mission will provide 80 per cent of the estimated cost, and the State will have to bear the rest.
Source- http://www.thehindu.com
AICTSL likely to get four new ibuses by month end, says CEO.
Journey in ibuses is also becoming uncomfortable for the passenges as most of them hardly find a seat nowadays and they often end up standing.
AICTSL has not procured more buses as per plans and thereby forced the passengers to travel in these crammed ibuses.
CEO of Atal Indore City transport Service Limited (AICTSL) Sandeep Soni told dna that the ridership of ibuses was 31164 on Monday and the revenue collected was Rs 2,89,000.
However, he regretted for the inconvenience faced by the passengers due to shortage of buses. “We have realised that the ibuses are running over crowded and trying to get more ibuses as soon as possible. We have 16 ibuses and likely to get four more by the month end,” said Soni.
“The passengers will get some space to breathe once we get more buses,” added Soni.
Meanwhile the installation of automatic signals on BRTS corridor has been completed and the signals are under trial.
Soni said, “A few signals are adjusted manually and few are working on automatic loop on trial basis. In automatic loop, the signal timing is adjusted automatically according to density of traffic.”
“Once the trial is completed all signals on BRTS will be shifted on automatic loop,” added Soni. Soni further said that the continuous monitoring of operation of ibuses is being done and modifications are being done accordingly. The speed breaker near Industry House left turn seems to be useless and it might be removed.
The left turn near LIG trisection might be widened to facilitate movement of traffic, added Soni.
http://www.dnaindia.com
By Express News Service – BANGALORE
The BMTC began expansion of its BIG (Bangalore Integrated Grid) Bus Services with the launch of its Big Trunk services along Hosur Road.
The objective of the BIG Trunk Services is to rationalise routes to various destinations in the city and this is the second step to gradually shift from a destination-oriented bus service to a direction-oriented service.
BMTC has over 2,400 routes, which is significantly higher when compared to cities similar in size and bus ridership (Seoul has about 500 routes, London 700 routes and Shanghai has 1,000 routes).
According to statistics provided by the BMTC, although it has 6,500 buses, the sheer number of routes means that there are only about 2.6 buses per route, ultimately resulting in lower frequency of buses.
“The idea of the BIG Trunk Services and the feeder services that will begin soon is to increase the frequency of buses while rationalising the services. At present, the frequency of buses is about 2.5 hours at many villages near Electronics City, Chandapura or Attibele. By introducing trunk and feeder services, we hope to provide a frequency of about 30 minutes,” said Anjum Parvez, managing director, BMTC.
Hosur Road itself has over 65 routes. With the trunk and feeder services, this will be reduced by at least 54.4 per cent (about 30 routes). BMTC has already identified 11 other routes where trunk and feeder services will be introduced within a year. These include, Old Airport Road, Sarjapur Road, Bannerghatta Road, Kanakapura Road, Mysore Road, Magadi Road, Tumkur Road, Bellary Road, Hennur Road, Old Madras Road and Tannery Road.
The services were launched after extensive research on the pattern of travel along Hosur Road, done in collaboration with EMBARQ, a not-for-profit orginisation.
“This is a big expansion taking the well known BIG 10 system to its logical conclusion – making a full high frequency connective grid for the whole city. Other planned initiatives such as on-street transfer terminals, integrated fares and bus stop information will support this transition,” said Ashwin Prabhu, Principal-Associate, Urban Transport, EMBARQ India.
As many as 65 buses will operate along the trunk route initially and the city will eventually see about 110 buses on the trunk route (Hosur Road) and 110 mini-buses connecting the villages around the three nodal points- Electronics City, Chandapura and Attibele. The BMTC will be inviting tenders for the mini buses in the coming month.
2,500 More Buses for BMTC
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said that BMTC would be procuring more buses under JnNURM. “Bangalore is a growing city and there are many routes but not enough buses. BMTC will be procuring 2,500 buses for the city and 4,684 buses for NEKRTC, NWKRTC and KSRTC,” he said.
“We have asked for a total of `2,990 crore for various infrastructure projects to improve transport in the city. Of this, `267 crore is towards procurement of buses. We hope that the Centre will give at least 50 per cent of this amount,” he added.
Cameras on Buses
In an effort to combat sexual harassment on buses, BMTC has installed a camera on one of the buses. Cameras will be fitted to all the buses once its performance with the road condition, suitability of technology, capacity of the capture and direction of fitting are analysed.
Source-http://newindianexpress.com
Written by ITW Editor · Filed Under buses
By Express News Service – CHENNAI
State Housing and Urban Development Minister R Vaithilingam has urged the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) officials to speed up the Vandalur Mofussil Bus Terminus work, which was announced by Chief Minister at the Assembly.
The Minister interacted with the CMDA officials on the development schemes implemented by the authority, here on Wednesday.
The officials explained the Minister about the various schemes implemented by CMDA, including the Koyambedu food grain complex, additional two-wheeler parking facilities at the CMBT, storm water drainage work at the flower market in Koyambedu, a container terminus at Manjambakkam and the land acquisition process for the Outer Ring Road Project.
Vaithilingam also advised the officials to complete all the works within the stipulated time.
He further said that all the land records which were acquired by the CMDA for various schemes, should be transfered to the CMDA’s name.
Urging the officials to speed up the Vandalur mofussil bus terminus work, he also told them to intensify the land acquisition work at Vandalaur along with the work on the proposed container terminals at Karunagaraseri and Annambedu.
Thanga Kaliyaperumal, Secretary to Government, Housing and Urban Development Department, and vice-chairman of CMDA, R Venkatesan, member-secretary of CMDA, were among the officials who took part in the meeting.
Source-http://newindianexpress.com
Hindustan Times (Delhi) /Garima Vohra
It is an ordeal to wait for Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) buses in South Extension-1. To begin with, there are too many bus stops within a few metres. “The drivers halt the bus according to their will and there choice of bus stop. One has to run from one bus stop to another to catch the same bus as the buses do not halt at the designated bus stops,” says Srikh Mandal, a resident of South Extension-1. Adds Jyotsana Marwah, a college student, “We keep signalling the driver to stop but the bus stops only when they want. None of the drivers follows any rules. If there is already a bus, the other drivers halt either a few metres away from the bus stop or in the middle of the road.” “The ACs of many buses do not work though the passengers have to pay more fare,” adds Harpreet Singh, a resident of Andrews Ganj. “Two bus stops have been removed due to Metro construction. But buses still stop at that place. As a result, passengers have started waiting for buses at these points. Since there is no bus stop, during rush hours, passengers come up to the middle of the road to catch a bus,” says Singh. “Many drivers and conductors have been challaned for turning up for duty without proper uniform. Currently, the biggest challenge for the DTC is to get homeguards. Around 89 night buses were given homeguards for safety but not a single one
Source-http://paper.hindustantimes.com
ANIL KUMAR SASTRY
Suffers loss Rs. 147 crore in 2012–13
The year 2012–13 witnessed the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) losing its recognition as the lone urban public transport entity earning profits, after it posted a loss Rs. 147 crore.
This is the first time that BMTC has suffered loss after its formation, except the Rs. 7.82-crore loss registered during the first year of its formation (1997–98). While it posted Rs. 3.96-crore profit in 1998–99, the earnings touched the peak (Rs. 224 crore) in 2006–07.
The fall in revenue began from 2008–09, coinciding with the rule of Bharatiya Janata Party in Karnataka. Its profit margins came down every successive year in the last five years: Rs. 55 crore in 2008–09; Rs. 65 crore in 2009–10; Rs. 50 crore in 2010–11, and Rs. 21 crore in 2011–12. During these five years, BMTC’s performance took a severe beating in all respects — right from procuring new buses to maintenance of existing fleet.
Creation of divisions
Unlike its sister corporations — Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC), North West KRTC and North East KRTC — which were functioning in a three-tier system — Central Office, Divisional Office and Depots, BMTC had two-tier system where depots were directly administered from the central office.
The management decided to introduce the three-tier system to increase operational efficiency in 2010–11 and created five divisions.
While workers and their unions termed this as an “attempt to decentralise corruption”, the management justified the move saying it would help tighten administration.
The suspicion of the workers was confirmed after the Lokayukta police
Source-http://www.thehindu.com
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