SHUBHANGI SHIFA
Ranchi, March 10: With a plan of bringing in over 245 new buses in the city, the Ranchi Municipal Corporation is set to convert over 36 of the old buses to CNG.
Talking in this regard, a source at RMC claimed, “We are looking to convert all old buses to CNG. This will not only help in saving money amid rising diesel prices but will also work for promoting preventative measures against air pollution.”
When asked how many buses are functional at present and how many will be converted to CNG, the RMC official said, “At present 36 buses are to be converted to CNG.”
Notably, in the past 20 years, the Ranchi Municipal Corporation has purchased 200 buses at a cost of about Rs 1000 crores. At present, only around 40 of them are worth using, of which several face defects every day. Ten out of 40 buses break down almost every day.
As per sources, 50 thousand passengers of the city travel only by bus. Due to the non-availability of buses, people are forced to take cabs, autos, rickshaws or e-rickshaws.
Meanwhile, the Municipal Corporation is engaged in removing this problem for the residents of the city. The corporation claims that after the purchase of the new buses, a city bus will be available for commuting every 10 minutes. People will not have to face any problems in commuting in the city.
When asked about this, the former operator of the said buses Kishore Mantri, who had been outsourced the responsibility of managing the buses said, “In 2010-11 around 70 red and white buses were bought by the RMC at a price of Rs 9.5-10 lakh each, and further in 2017-18, 26 red buses were bought at a price of Rs 15-17 lakh each.”
After the purchase in 2017-18, the total number of buses run by the RMC through private operators had gone up to 91 buses in Ranchi. They were run by the RMC on PPP mode. Of them, 25 buses were run by Kihore Mantri and 66 buses (26 new and 40 old buses) were run by one Suresh Singh.
As per the RMC plan, 100 more new buses were to be introduced to provide transportation services to the people of the state capital. However, this plan never came up to fruition.
On the other hand, the present bus operator Kaisar Alam said, “At present, I have around 41 buses, all of which are active and run regularly. None of these buses is parked at the bus terminus. They are run on different routes throughout the city, and have reported no problem so far.”
When asked about the dilapidated conditions of the buses, Alam said, “Several of these buses are over 10-year-old and it can be expected that they will not be new for long, especially amid the amount of usage of said buses.”
