Pvt firm to operate city buses

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, June 29

A five-member sub-committee has the given green signal for giving the task of operating local city buses to a private transporter.

After getting an approval from the committee headed by the Mayor, the Municipal Corporation has prepared a tender which will be opened on July 15.

With this development, the hope to ply city buses in trans-railway area has arisen once again.

The decision to give the city buses in private hands has been welcomed by SAD councillors while the Congress has alleged that it is a route to give buses to their favourite transporter.

In the general house meeting, Congress councillor protested against this item in the agenda.

He demanded from the MCB to run the city buses on their own but the MCB claimed that it was difficult as it would need them to hire drivers and conductors and they would also have to construct a workshop for the maintenance of the buses.

For the past four years, the PRTC has been running these buses but now, the PRTC has expressed its inability to carry on as the organisation was facing loss to the tune of lakhs of rupees every month.

The PRTC claimed that in the past four years, it had suffered a loss of Rs 90 lakh.

To recover the loss, the PRTC had extended the route but still it has been unable to recover it.

As per the tender, these city buses would be given on contract to the private transporter for a period of nine years.

Mayor Balwant Rai Nath said the MCB and the PRTC had faced losses in running the city buses due to which they had decided to give them on contract to the private transporter.

This way the MCB would be able to generate revenue from it, he added.

He said the buses would be given on contract for nine years and private transporters would take care of maintenance and would also pay the rent to the MCB on daily basis.

As much as 5-10 per cent of the cost of buses will be taken from the transporter in the beginning.

He will also have to open a station service for the buses.