WB govt to buy 183 new buses for services in Kolkata

The West Bengal government today decided to place an order for 63 air-conditioned Volvo buses and 120 semi-low floor buses from Tata Motors for providing better transport services to the people.
These buses would be the first tranche of over 600 buses that would be bought for Calcutta State Transport Corporation (CSTC), which would run these vehicles in different routes in the metropolis, under JNNURM scheme, Transport Minister Madan Mitra said.
"The arrival of these buses would help add to passenger comfort apart from increase in services," Mitra said.
"While each premium ultra-low floor Volvo bus will cost over Rs one crore, the buses from Tata Motors will cost Rs 64 lakhs each," state transport secretary Alapan Bandopadhyay said.

A team from the transport department would visit the Bangalore facility of Volvo early next week to inspect the prototypes before finalising the model which would be taken, he said.
The delivery schedule would be decided after that, he said.

Having burnt its fingers earlier over franchising government buses to private operators, the state transport department has decided to do away with the franchisee system for buses procured under the JNNURM scheme and would operate these by its own corporations.
The previous regime had given away several hundred JNNURM buses to private franchisees, most of whom have defaulted on payment of EMIs.

As such, the present Transport Minister Mitra decided that all the 874 buses sanctioned recently by the Union Urban Development Ministry would be run by different state transport corporations.
While CSTC would get over 600 buses for the metropolis, South Bengal State Transport Corporation (SBSTC) would run 100 buses in Durgapur and 140 buses in Jalpaiguri and the Darjeeling Hills.