Soon the number of city buses will increase on the capital routes to give respite to the commuters as the Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) has purchased 20 more new city buses from TATA Motors to ferry passengers. At present, 51 city buses are running on city roads, ferrying a good number of passengers on a daily basis. The service of new city buses will initiate from January 2017. All major documentation works have been complete by the RMC officials.
“All the 20 new buses will be pushed to service from January first week. At present 19 city buses are under repair process. Soon all the technical glitches will be addressed to give satisfactory services to the daily commuters,” said, Additional Municipal Commissioner, Bidyanand Sharma Pankaj.
To avoid traffic snarl, the new city buses will ferry passengers on the designated routes only. Currently, city buses ply on two routes that include ITI bus stand and Dhurwa and between Kanke and Tupudana. Both the route covers a distance of approximately around 30km, 20km respectively.
To beef up the security, administration has planned earlier to install GPS in all the buses plying within the urban vicinity to monitor and keep a track on city buses activities. However, the plan to install GPS in city buses is it yet to be ensured by the administration and concerned agency managing the city buses.
Kishore Mantri owner of KM Travels, the agency appointed by RMC to run the city bus service on contract, added, “All the 51 city buses are yet to be decked up with GPS enabling devices. The proposal to install GPS in all the city buses is lingering since long. Besides that, there is some maintenance issue always with the buses. The authorities should ensure proper bus bays and bus stoppages at demarcated places for properly executing the plan of running city buses in crowded itineraries. Auto rickshaws often create hurdle for city bus operation as well.”
On the other hand, Additional Municipal Commissioner, maintained, “Tender work has already been completed and within one month all the city buses plying in State Capital will get GPS devices. Installation work is also likely to complete soon.”
“More number of city buses will add to the woes. At present, we are just reluctant to manage the buses and keep them in running condition somehow. Our company wants to start city bus service from Ranchi and Hatia railway stations as well, but the RMC is not paying attention to our demand. Routes should be revised,” added, Mantri.