Urban Development Ministry sanctions 2,000 buses under JNNURM

The Urban Development ministry has sanctioned over 2,000 buses for states under its flagship Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) scheme.
Officials said the ministry plans to allocate 10,000 buses to different states under JNNURM and the latest grants were extended at a meeting in Delhi yesterday of the Central Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee (CSMC) constituted for the purpose.
"The number of buses sanctioned for Jaipur (Rajasthan), Naya Raipur (Chhattisgarh), Puducherry, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Maharashtra stood at 286, 50, 50, 73, 400 and 910, respectively," said a release issued by the ministry.
The statement added that UD Secretary Sudhir Krishna, while chairing the meeting, stressed on the need to operate the buses in a sustainable environment and said that the current round of funding also included extension of grants for creation of support infrastructure like bus depots.

He also added that the Ministry was trying to replicate the metro experience on buses and, to that extent, was looking to improve the image of Public Transport by bus.
The JNNURM buses will have state-of-the art facilities like intelligent transport systems, including features like LED display for stops, CCTV cameras, GPRS and passenger information, vehicle tracking and automatic fare collection systems, the Ministry said.