State to buy 3,000 buses

Transport department to give 7 acres for metro in Majestic

Karnataka government is planning to buy 3,000 buses for various state road transport corporations during 2010-11. “We had purchased 3,000 buses last year and we will add the same number of buses this year also, which will enable us to introduce buses on routes where private sector has been dominating,” R Ashok, minister for transport, said.

The government is in the process of introducing buses on all nationalised routes where it has no presence till now and this requires the purchase of additional buses, he told reporters, here on Monday.

He said, of the 3,000 buses to be purchased this year, 1,000 buses will be added to the fleet of the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) and the remaining will be distributed among other road transport corporations, including Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC), he said.

Ashok said the KSRTC has enough financial capacity to purchase additional buses and it does not require any guarantee from the state government. “Almost all the nationalised banks have come forward to give us loans to purchase buses. We have enough resources to add more buses on our own with the state guarantee,” he said.

Recently, the government started running buses on the Udupi-Mangalore and Udupi-Kasargod routes, where the private sector had dominated for the last fifty years. Similarly, the government will introduce buses on the Chamarajanagar sector, he said.

The minister, further, said work on the metro rail terminal at Kempe Gowda bus station would commence within 3-4 months. The project will be tendered on April 23 and the process will be completed in the next two months. Of the 20 acres in the Majestic area owned by the transport department, seven acres will be handed over to the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited for building its main terminal, he said adding the existing bus station will be shifted to various places like Kengeri, Shantinagar and Mysore Road among others.

In order to ease the congestion in the Majestic area, the government plans to build satellite bus stations at 10 different places across the city, Ashok added.