Jamshedpur: The efforts of the Jamshedpur Notified Area Committee ( JNAC) to revive the city bus service received a setback as not a single private party responded to the tender .
The tender was for outsourcing the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission ( JNNURM)-sponsored city bus service.
Vinod Kumar , a senior official of JNAC who is looking after the issue said , ” As no one turned up to
takeover the bus service we will have to go for a re-tendering process.
Before retender we will seek advise of the urban development department, ” said Kumar adding that this time they will go for a short -tender wherein the process of submission of application and selection will be completed within 8-10 days.
The civic body had issued 13-point terms and conditions which the outsourced agency has to follow if it was interested in taking over the ailing bus service.
The terms and conditions stated that the agency would be appointed for a period of 11-months after which depending on the performance its contract will be liable for renewal.
Meanwhile, sources at the Baridih bus depot, where the fleet of 50defunct buses are undergoing necessary repairing and maintenance job revealed that so far ever engines have been replaced for 30 buses.
” We have also changed the lubricant oil and filter of those 30 buses which will now undergo necessary
denting and painting work.
The buses will be given a fresh coat of paint,” said a worker engaged in the repairing work. The state urban development department had recently sanctioned Rs 66 lakh to the JNAC so that it can undertake the repairing and maintenance job of the defunct buses.
The urban civic body had engaged, a local automobile firm – Vishal Trading- to overhaul the rickety buses and make them fit so that the bus service could be resumed, at the earliest. Notably, the urban civic body
that took over the reins of the city buses from Jharkhand Tourism Development Corporation (JTDC) last year, had fixed a tentative deadline of midApril for resuming the bus service.
” We were very opti- mistic about resuming the bus service from mid-April. But, now it seems difficult
as no private party responded to the tender floated by us.
We will again go for a retendering process which will delay the bus service, ” said Deepak Sahay, the special officer of JNAC.
Launched in the city in 2010 with a fleet of 50 vehicles and eight notified routes, the service has now been
reduced to 15 buses on as many as five routes.
The Jamshedpur Notified Area Committee (JNAC), Mango Notified Area Committee and Jugsalai municipality had mooted a proposal to run city bus service under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban
Renewal Mission (JNNURM) as per the public private partnership (PPP) model.
