Tamil Nadu CM flags off 275 new buses in Chennai

CHENNAI: Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami flagged off 275 new buses at the secretariat on Thursday. With this, about 1746 buses have been added to the fleet of eight transport corporations in the state from July 2018.

The new buses are built at the cost of Rs. 68.99 crore. About 17 town buses have been allotted to Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC), which caters the bus commuters in Chennai city.

The TNSTC (Villupuram) division to receive 72 buses, while TNSTC (Salem) has been given 43 buses. 

The Coimbatore and Kumbakonam divisions of  TNSTC have been allotted 75 and 68 buses respectively. Madurai and Tirunelveli divisions of TNSTC have not been given any new buses, said the official statement. 

The new buses are built as per the AIS 052 code, uniform standard code for building new buses introduced by Automotive Research Association Of India (ARAI). The code has specifications for building a bus with additional safety features for commuters.

With the fleet capacity of 21,678 buses, the eight transport corporations in the state caters about 1.74 crore commuters a day, added the statement.