Jamshedpur, July 1: City bus service under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) would soon add 15 buses to its fleet, which will run in different routes.
The Baridih-based government bus depot revealed that the 15 buses, of a fleet of 50 buses which were allotted to Jamshedpur are getting prepared which will hit the roads soon.
�In order to cater to the needs of commuters more buses are being added. Those 15 buses were lying defunct due to want of necessary repairs and maintenance. Local automobile firm Vishal Sales and Service has started the repairing and maintenance work,” said a source at the bus depot.
Confirming the development an official of Jamshedpur Notified Area Committee (JNAC), the custodian of city buses, told that the buses would ply in different routes from the first week of July.
A representative of Vishal Sales and Service said that apart from batteries and other parts they are also replacing the windscreen of all the 15 buses. �We are giving a new look to the buses.
The repair and maintenance cost of the �entire fleet (50) including the 15 buses which are under repair �have cost us about Rs 65 lakh of which JNAC has released payment of Rs 19 lakh,” said the representative of the automobile firm.
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Significantly, 10 city buses, grounded since October 2014, started plying on various routes from March this year in addition to the 12 that had made a comeback last year.
Later, in April this year 13 more buses were introduced taking the number of buses in running condition to 35. The remaining 15 buses out of the fleet of 50 were lying idle at the Baridih bus depot.
Notably, the urban civic body that took over the reins of the city buses from Jharkhand Tourism Development Corporation (JTDC) in 2014 had fixed a tentative deadline for resuming the bus service.
Launched in the city in 2010 with a fleet of 50 vehicles and eight notified routes, the service was reduced to 15 buses on as many as five routes.
The Jamshedpur Notified Area Committee (JNAC), Mango Notified Area Committee and Jugsalai Municipality mooted a proposal to run city bus service under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) as per the public private partnership (PPP) model.