PRTC resumes night bus service after 3 decades

Tribune News Service

Patiala, June 30

The Pepsu Road Transport Corporation (PRTC) has resumed its night service -– that was scrapped in the 1980s during the militancy period — on three routes in the first phase. These are Chandigarh-Patiala, Patiala-Rajpura and Patiala-Ambala and the response is good with 100 per cent occupancy.

After a survey, PRTC has started a night bus from Chandigarh at 11 pm that reaches Patiala at 12.30 am.

A round trip between Patiala and Rajpura has been started at 12.30 am. This bus reaches Patiala at 1.44 am and then leaves for Ambala at 2 am, thus connecting the city traffic to the Ambala railway station.

There are many trains scheduled from Ambala to different cities across India after 3 am and the commuters, so far, had to depend on taxis or private cars to reach Ambala to board these trains.

Now that the experiment has proved fruitful and the buses are generating enough revenue to sustain their running cost and save some money, the corporation has decided to start two buses at night from Patiala to Amritsar at 8 pm and 10 pm which will return the next morning.

Managing director of PRTC Manjit Singh Narang said that there is heavy demand on the Patiala-Amritsar route. Passengers, since long, had been demanding night service to Amritsar so that they can reach Golden Temple in the wee hours to pay obeisance and return the next morning before working hours.

He said the decision was taken considering its viability. The next in line is the night service from Chandigarh to Bathinda and Chandigarh to Sirsa.

The corporation is also planning to advance the timing of the first bus from Patiala to New Delhi from 4 am to 3 am so that people who work in offices in Delhi can reach there on time.

With the induction of 45 new buses in PRTC’s fleet recently, the total number of buses has reached 902 against its sanctioned fleet of 1,075 buses.

Airport service begins 

Jalandhar: Punjab Roadways will resume its Jalandhar-New Delhi Airport service from Wednesday. Two buses will ply from Jalandhar to Delhi airport on a daily basis and two will return on the same route. The bus will start from Jalandhar at 11 am and 3.30 pm and arrive from Delhi at 4.45 pm and 9.40 pm.