Punjab Government will soon resume its bus service to Delhi International Airport. The announcement was made by the state Transport Minister Laljit Singh Bulllar on Wednesday after the issue was taken up during the Secretary-level meeting of the Transport Departments of both the states.
A threadbare discussion was held between the Chief Ministers of both the Governments during Bhagwant Mann’s recent visit to Delhi.
Bhullar said that during a recent meeting with the Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, “I apprised him about the long pending issue which is directly connected with the increase in the revenue of the Transport Department”.
“I also informed the Chief Minister about the issue of looting of state's passengers by private bus operators due to unavailability of public bus service,” he said, adding that the Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had recently taken up the matter with his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal.
Bhullar said that after this, he had asked the Secretary Transport Vikas Garg “to hold a meeting with the concerned officials of Delhi Government, which was held today with the Principal Secretary Transport Ashish Kundra and officials of the Delhi International Airport. During the meeting, various aspects were discussed in the light of court order”.
The Minister said that Punjab Government buses would be able to provide affordable travel service to the passengers up till Delhi Airport from different cities of the state.
Meanwhile, the state Transport Secretary Vikas Garg said that during the meeting, his Delhi counterpart Ashish Kundra assured that this issue would be resolved soon and Punjab Government Bus Service would be able to ply up till Delhi international Airport.
The previous Congress regime had accused the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi of not allowing state-owned buses to ply up to the Delhi international airport.
Congress legislator Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, who was the Transport Minister in the previous Charanjit Singh Channi-led Government, had even asked Kejriwal in Amritsar in December last year why his government was not letting Punjab’s state-owned buses travel up to the Delhi airport.
Warring had then said that private buses that charge almost thrice the fare were being allowed to ply all the way to the IGI Airport but Volvo buses of the state transport undertaking had been barred from travelling to the Delhi airport.
In March this year, Congress MLA Partap Singh Bajwa had sought from the Chief Minister Mann to raise with Kejriwal the issue of allowing state-owned buses to travel up to the international airport in the national capital.
Bajwa had said that the state-owned transport undertakings — Pepsu Road Transport Corporation (PRTC) and Punbus — were not allowed to ply all the way to the Delhi airport.
If Punjab government’s bus service is resumed, it may come as a major setback for the Badals-run Indo-Canadian buses, which have only been allowed to go to the Indira Gandhi international airport causing huge losses to the state.