15 buses from Gandhi Maidan to AIIMS-Patna from today

PATNA: State transport minister Santosh Kumar Nirala will flag off 15 new non-AC buses on Saturday on Gandhi Maidan-All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS)-Patna route. The buses, to ply on 10-minute intervals, will start from Kargil Chowk and pass through Dak Bungalow roundabout, Patna Junction R-Block, Old Secretariat, Chitkohra, Anisabad, Khoja Imli, Mahavir Cancer Sansthan, Phulwarisharif Chowk, Walmi to AIIMS-Patna. The service is from 6:00am to 10:00pm.
The 15 buses are in addition to the 25 buses started recently on the Gandhi Maidan-Danapur route. As per the department source, around 1.5 lakh passengers have travelled on the route since the service was launched last fortnight.

“E-tickets can be availed in the buses itself. The tickets are in the range of Rs5 to Rs15. Women, senior citizens, disabled people and transgenders have 50% seats reserved for them in the buses with 32 seats. CCTV cameras and global positioning systems (GPS) are installed in the buses,” transport secretary Sanjay Kumar Agarwal said on Friday.

Agarwal said bus queue shelters would be developed on the Phulwarisharif route for the convenience of commuters. “Seven to eight more bus queue shelters have to be developed on this route. This new service will provide better connectivity between the busy areas of the city and AIIMS. Earlier, a person had to pay around Rs30-Rs40 for other means of public transport to reach Phulwarisharif from Gandhi Maidan and the journey took more than two hours time. Now, it will take a little over one hour to reach Phulwarisharif,” Agarwal said.

Talking about encroachments on bus shelters, Agarwal said these had been removed at a few places recently with the help of district administration. “We have also requested the district administration to monitor the shelters and ensure that there is no encroachment there,” he added.

Cash prize for drivers

Every month, three bus drivers and conductors of the buses plying on these routes would be given a cash reward by the transport department based on their performance. The present initiative is an effort to promote good service protocol by transport service providers.