Nagpur: The Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) transport committee chairman Bunty Kukde on Friday gave nod to appoint a project management consultant to help civic body procure six electric midi buses. The approval came after the transport department cited lack of expertise and knowledge to run electric buses, Kukde told TOI.
After receiving Rs9.60 crore state grant to purchase 30 buses for women-only service, the NMC decided to purchase electric buses instead of diesel ones.
To a query, transport manager Shivaji Jagtap claimed that the process to acquire five buses is underway and assured that the women-only buses will start plying on city roads within 25-30 days.
The committee also gave a green signal to department’s proposal to empower the transport department to erect bus shelters instead of NMC’s traffic department. Presently, the traffic department handles 158 bus shelters and has entrusted a private firm — Signpost — for its maintenance and in exchange the NMC gets royalty. But the department has no knowledge how much revenue the civic body is generating.
“Despite repeated reminders, the traffic department has not submitted the details,” claimed Jagtap.
The panel also cleared the department’s proposal to invite expression of interest for advertisement rights on buses. Though officials have not finalized the rates for the advertisements, they are expecting the civic body will generate Rs1 crore to Rs1.50 crore per annum.
An agreement will soon be signed with private operators to display advertisements on 362 red and 20 green buses.
The panel, however, withheld the proposal to pass quarterly accounts and expenditure statement from October 2017 to December 2017. “Following demands from other panel members including BJP corporator Pravin Bhisikar and Congress corporator Nitin Sathawne, we have convened a meeting to discuss the proposal at length on March 21,” said Kukde.
Kukde said the committee members will also conduct surprise checks in city buses to curb ticketless travel and corruption by conductors. He said presently the private firm — Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System Ltd (DIMTS), which operates the service, has only 48 ticket checkers to monitor 370 red and 20 green buses that make around 4,800 trips.
