Received last year, 217 buses gather dust in Kangra dist

Ravinder Sood

Palampur, August 26

In the absence any planning, over 200 new buses allocated to the HRTC under Jawaharlal Nehru Rural Urban Mission (JNNURM) by the Government of India are lying in disuse in different parts of Kangra district for the past one year.

The HRTC received these buses in the beginning of the year 2017 under a Centrally sponsored programme for utilization on the state roads, particularly in far-flung areas of the state where passenger transport services were negligible.

Because of lack of administrative and political will these buses could not be brought to roads and are lying parked in different parts of the district. Though the matter was brought to the notice of Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur and Transport Minister Govind Thakur time and again no steps have been initiated in the past six month to ply these buses.

As many as 217 buses had been allocated to Palampur, Baijnath, Dharmsala, Dehara, Nagrota Bagwan and Pathankot depots of Kangra district. Official sources said as there was shortage of drivers and conductors in the HRTC, these buses could not be plied. Even today there was shortage of operating staff.

“It cannot be expected that buses will come on the road any time soon as the HRTC is yet to recruit over 1,000 drivers and conductors to ply these buses which was a lengthy process”, the sources added.

A senior officer of the HRTC, while talking to The Tribune, admitted that if no early steps were initiated assets worth crores o rupees would go down the drain. He said as in most of the depots there was no space to park these buses the same had been parked in the fields or in private yards in open.

The Tribune tried to contact Transport Minister Govind Thakur in this regard but in vain. However, a spokesman of the minister said the process had already been started to bring these buses on road under cluster scheme. The routes for these buses were being finalized.

He said the minister was deeply concerned with the situation. He categorically stated that these buses were received from union government during Congress regime and the state government failed to come out with a policy how and where to utilize these buses.

Staff shortage

• A senior officer of the HRTC, while talking to The Tribune, admitted that if no early steps were initiated, assets worth crores of rupees would go down the drain
• Official sources said as there was shortage of drivers and conductors in the HRTC, these buses could not be plied