Gurugram bus service may miss August 28 launch too

GURUGRAM: The city bus service, which missed its Independence Day launch date, may also miss the revised deadline of August 28. For, chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, who is expected to attend a daylong NITI Aayog meeting in Delhi scheduled for Tuesday, may not make it to the city that day to officially flag off the bus service as planned.

GMDA officials said the unavailability of the chief minister on Tuesday might force them to defer the launch by a day or two.

Earlier this month, the CM had announced that the bus service — officially named as Gurugaman — would be launched on August 15. However, the proposed launch was postponed to August 28 primarily due to delay by the state government in issuing notifications on taxation and permits.

This apart, inspection for compliance and fitness of the 25 buses, which are likely to be rolled out first, was also not completed till then.

GMDA CEO V Umashankar told TOI the inspection of the buses was complete now. “We are expecting the notification with regard to taxes on the city bus operations by Monday. This is the last pending issue. The chief minister has already cleared the notification, and it is currently with the finance department. We are all set to launch the service on Tuesday. However, the CM has a meeting in Delhi the same day from 10am to 5pm and therefore, we are still not fully sure if it can be done on Tuesday,” he added.

“We are still hoping to get a window of around an hour on Tuesday. But if it does not happen, the launch will take place on Wednesday or Thursday,” Umashankar said.

Though the buses are most likely to hit the roads this month, commuters will have to wait for the proposed common card — on the lines of Octopus Card used in Hong Kong — at least till September 7. Officials claimed that the yet-to-be-named card would be better than what the Arvind Kejriwal government in Delhi had to offer. Apart from bus and metro services, it could be used in kirana shops, retail stores, supermarkets, restaurants, parking lots and for other utilities and small value transactions. “The (partner) bank says it needs time till September 7 to start the digital ticketing process. So, we have decided not to wait for it. We will start with cash payment,” Umashankar said.