If you are fed up of seeing the old, badly constructed and damaged bus shelters in Dehradun and wish for the steel bus shelters existing in Delhi, then you won’t have to wait long as the town is going to have around 70 such bus shelters soon.
Approval for the installation of bus shelters here in the town was already given by the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD) in 2013. The bus shelter project was inaugurated by Mayor of Dehradun, Vinod Chamoli on September 12 last year and the work is in progress in the State capital since then. These bus shelters will be similar to the stainless steel ones constructed in Delhi. Delhi based US Advertising Agency has been hired for the project. Initially these shelters will come up in limited numbers and gradually the final count will go up to around 70.
Design and pattern of these bus shelters are pretty similar to those in Delhi and around 70 bus shelters would be installed within the time period of six months. Interestingly these bus shelters will have various facilities for different types of commuters including the visually handicapped people. Braille tiles will be installed in these bus shelters, which would guide the visually handicapped people in approaching the bus shelter and in finding the seats as well.
Amit Kapoor, owner of US Advertising Agency informed that different sites have been allocated to the company jointly by three departments including MCD, Traffic Police and Public Works Department (PWD) for installation of these bus shelters.
Till date around 12 bus shelters have already been installed at various places in the city including Mussoorie Diversion Road, near Scholars Home School on Rajpur Road, Yak Petrol Pump on Rajpur Road, near life Insurance Corporation (lIC) office on Haridwar Road, Sai Temple on Rajpur Road, St Joseph’s Academy on Rajpur Road and some other places.
He added that the sites have already been allocated by these three departments and a final clearance has also been received from the MCD for the installation of these bus shelters. It must be mentioned here that the bus shelters project is being undertaken in Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode. The work was started in first week of October last year and is scheduled to be finished in two to three months.
latest design and techniques have been used in construction of these bus shelters with stainless steel body at a cost of around Rs 12- 13 lakh per shelter. Initially the construction and development work of these bus shelters is being done at Delhi after which the same are installed here.
These bus shelters are expected to become a good mode for advertisement and would also help in adding around 19 lakhs to the MCD’s revenue, informed Mukhya Nagar Adhikari at MCD, Ashok Kumar.
Congress councillor at MCD, Dr Bijendra Pal Singh informed that these bus shelters would become a good source of revenue for MCD. The work is already in progress and many bus shelters are being installed at Rajpur Road on priority basis considering it to be a posh area of the town, averred Singh.