Punjab Roadways to resume service to Delhi airport from today

Deepkamal Kaur

Jalandhar, June 14

After a gap of almost three and a half years, the Punjab Roadways is set to resume its direct bus service to the IGI Airport in Delhi from Wednesday, as the Chief Ministers of Punjab and Delhi will flag off two buses from the bus stand here.

While Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi Transport Minister and officials from the Transport Department will land in a chartered plane at the Adampur airport, CM Bhagwant Mann will arrive in a chopper with his team.

They will then drive to the Jalandhar bus stand past noon. Ahead of the visit, hoardings regarding the launch of service have been put up along the Adampur-Jalandhar stretch.

The Roadways had last plied buses in December 2018, after which these were impounded by the Delhi transport authorities for allegedly failing to produce the agreement copy of the Roadways with the Delhi Airport Parking Authority, which allows the entry of buses.

Six months ago, during the Congress regime, then Transport Minister and PCC chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring had confronted Kejriwal over allowing 35 Indo-Canadian Transport buses to

the airport and taking action against state buses, but to no avail.

The Opposition has now accused Kejriwal of double standard, saying he got Punjab buses impounded when it was in the Opposition in the state and now when the AAP is in power, he had got the service restarted with fanfare.

Residents told to deposit arms

In an unprecedented move, the police have asked residents of colonies near the bus stand to deposit licensed weapons ahead of the CMs’ visit. Residents of Green Park locality said they were forced to deposit weapons. They expressed surprise at the move, saying in the past they were only asked to deposit arms during elections.

19 buses to ply

• 19 buses will be flagged off — 13 of Punjab Roadways, six of PRTC
• Seven of these will ply from Jalandhar, while five will operate from Chandigarh/Ropar
• The rest will ply from Amritsar, Patiala, Ludhiana, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala, Ludhiana and Pathankot