Modern, hi-tech bus terminal opens in Lucknow

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday inaugurated a first-of-its-kind, hi-tech Rs 232 crore bus terminal here and announced that 21 more bus stations and bus shelters across the state will be spruced up in coming days.

As a token start to the bus services from the Alambagh bus terminal, he also flagged off two buses to the Swami Narayan temple in Ayodhya.

Buses for commuters will be thrown open from Wednesday when, under the first phase, 395 air-conditioned buses will start plying from this bus terminal.

Officials said buses for Gorakhpur (30), Varanasi (14), 94 luxury buses for Delhi and Agra as well as normal service buses (306) for Varanasi, Allahabad, Jhans, Hardoi and Etawah will ply from this terminal.

Speaking on the occasion, Adityanath said his government had made travel free for differently abled on any state-owned bus running anywhere in the country and have also made travel on the festival of 'Raksha Bandhan' free for girls and women of Uttar Pradesh.

Work on the bus terminal started in 2012 during the Samajwadi Party (SP) regime and party workers inaugurated the terminal symbolically late on Monday, having accused the ruling BJP of trying to hijack the good work done by the Akhilesh Yadav government.

The terminal is linked with Metro services, has five lifts and has a shopping mall, an official told IANS. It has an air-conditioned food court, a theatre, ATMs, an AC waiting room, luggage scanners and a passenger capacity of 25,000 at a given time.

Other than the facility of parking 50 buses on the ground level, there will be space to park 50 buses in an underground parking.

--IANS

md/mr