UTC to buy 300 new buses

Faced with acute shortage of buses, the Uttarakhand Transport Corporation (UTC) has decided to purchase 300 new buses. The corporation would also hire 200 buses on contractual basis from the private operators. A decision in this regard was taken in course of the 25th board meeting of the UTC held at the State secretariat on Wednesday. It was also decided during the meeting that the corporation would buy ten electric and ten Volvo buses for the passengers.

Chairing the board meeting, the chief secretary Utpal Kumar Singh said that the electric buses to be included in the fleet would run to ferry students to and from their schools in the cities.

 He suggested that these pollution- free buses should also be operated in the nearby towns on monthly rental basis. The CS also instructed the officers concerned to install speed governors, CCTV cameras and GPS in all the buses run by the corporation.

The managing director  UTC Brijesh Sant said that 243 buses out of the fleet of 1183 buses under the corporation would soon be auctioned. “This has made it an imperative for us to buy new buses to facilitate the passengers,” he said. He further said that eye sights of 2400 drivers have been tested and speed governors have been installed in 600 buses to avert mishaps. The remaining buses would soon be fitted with the speed governors, he said.

The meeting was attended among others by the additional chief secretary Om Prakash, secretary Tourism Dilip Jawalkar, additional secretary Finance L N Pant and general manager (operations) Deepak Jain besides some officers of UTC.