Jalandhar: City bus service plan in limbo
Jalandhar, July 19
Almost a decade since the MC’s city bus service had come to a halt, there seems to be no plan to have a public transport service in the city.
There are about 13 lakh private vehicles plying on city roads daily, leading to traffic snarls and pollution issues. Those who own a vehicle have no trouble in commuting on a daily basis but for the rest, taking a cab or an autorickshaw are the only options available.
Challan for not segregating waste
The MC has decided to challan those who are not segregating waste. MC Commissioner Gautam Jain said, “The NGT is reviewing the waste management procedure. So, we are going to be strict against those not segregating wet and dry waste at homes.”
Joint Commissioner Puneet Sharma said, “We are in the process of issuing ID cards to all rag-pickers and will regulate the charges levied by them too. Our target is to streamline the waste management by the end of this month.”
Since the Jalandhar Municipal Corporation has been defunct for the past over a year as its term has expired, no proposal for having a city bus service could be mooted. The contract for the bus service had exhausted around September 2014. It was then planned that 128 new CNG buses would be started under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, but nothing has happened.
A fresh proposal was readied about a year back by the Centre under which Jalandhar was to get 97 electric buses with 60 pc allocation of funds from the Centre and the remaining 40 pc by the state. Nearly 12 routes had also been planned covering all main roads of the city, including Kapurthala Road, bus stand, railway station, 66-foot road, Nakodar Road, 120-foot road and Rama Mandi, among other stretches.
It was also decided that the buses would be parked at the city bus stand and that their charging points would also be installed within the premises. But the proposal is yet to take a shape.
Puneet Sharma, Joint Commissioner, MC, said, “The tender process for starting electric buses in the city is being undertaken at the Central level. On our part, we have submitted the required estimates. The project could not move on as the code of conduct had been in force in the city for long. Now, we are again going ahead with it”.
