Uttaranchal transport dept to add 250 buses

Virtually coming out of the red, the Uttaranchal transport department will add 250 buses to raise its fleet strength to 1,000 and issue smart cards to all the vehicle owners in the state.

"We are adding 250 more buses during the current financial year," State Transport Minister Hira Singh Bist said.

Currently, the transport department has nearly 750 buses but 250 of them are old. At a later stage, these 250 old buses would also be phased out, Bist said.

The transport department, which was facing losses to the tune of Rs 30 crore following the division of assets and liabilities with its mother Uttar Pradesh state four years ago, has now brought down its losses to merely Rs 1 crore.

"We have virtually come out of losses," Bist said. He said the net profit during the current quarter has gone up to Rs 7.82 crore as compared to the last year's net profit of Rs 4.70 crore. "We have almost doubled our net profit," Bist added.

He said the department would run 40 new semi-deluxe buses to the hilly areas following growing demand in this regard. The department would run special sleeper coaches to tourist destinations like Haridwar and Nainital, he said.

He said the department would also set up RTO offices in all the 13 district headquarters of the state so as to lessen the inconvenience caused to the people for traveling all the way to Dehra Dun and Rishikesh for registration and license purposes.

In addition to this, the department has decided to issue smart cards to all the vehicle owners detailing names, photo, car registration no and other necessary details which may be helpful for security reasons. The department is likely to issue six lakh smart cards in the state.