Infamous for its ‘high planning and low execution’ kind of modus operandi for quite some time, the Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) has once again said that the low-floor buses in city will become a reality by year end.
Deputy Mayor Sanjeev Vijayvargeeya had said on Thursday that the purchase of as many as 30 low-floor buses will take place anytime soon and the processes are on for it.
The idea of purchasing low-floor buses for city operations first surfaced in 2011. But turning as many as 20 city buses that were purchased thereafter into nearly scrap has added some fuel in desperation for the needs of low-floor efficient buses. Actually 70 small sized city buses purchased by RMC from a company have been roaming from hands of RMC to JTDC to a private company to again RMC before these were handed for operations to KM Travels, which has been operating it since May 3 this year.
“Maintenance of these buses turned out to be a nightmare, as the company which supplied these buses to us doesn’t own a workshop anywhere in Jharkhand. 14 out of 70 buses are badly in need of repairing and we have failed to find a suitable company for repairing works even after tendering the work for thrice. So, now we have decided to purchase low floor buses as soon as possible,” added Vijayvargeeya.
He added that low floor buses would be purchased from a company which owns service centre here. He said, “RMC doesn’t have a budget availability issue for purchasing these buses. If we get it on DGSND (a term used for government approved rates), we will not have to go for a tender. In case it doesn’t happen, we will tender for it and would choose a company that owns repairing workshop here in Ranchi itself”.
Even KM Travels was not happy with the physical status of the buses it got from RMC. “Buses are in poor conditions. The situation is so disappointing that we had to start our own repairing centre on HB Road with a healthy investment.” He indicated that RMC was in conversation for a Tata Group company for low-floor buses as company has its service centre in Ranchi.