MTC’s fleet gets 30 more buses

With the new addition, the MTC has augmented its fleet by 725 new buses in the last two years.

During an event on Thursday, the Chief Minister flagged off 370 new buses which would go to the eight transport corporations operating in the State.

Of the new buses, Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (Coimbatore) has received the highest share of 104 new buses. With this, the number of new buses in TNSTC (Coimbatore) fleet has been increased to 580 from 476 buses. TNSTC (Kumbakonam) received 41 buses on Thursday, taking the total number of new buses it received in two years to 864 – the largest beneficiary during this period.

“During the last two-and-a-half years, the government had dedicated 4,381 buses to the Transport Corporations that were bought at a cost of Rs 1,314 crore. Apart from this, 370 new buses have been added at a cost of Rs 109 crore. Now, the State has 4,751 new buses,” said an official.

Meanwhile, a Transport Department press statement said that the eight Transport Corporations have been serving over 1.74 crore passengers. “The government had dedicated as many as 13,253 buses from May 2011. The department is providing free bus passes to school students and senior citizens,” the statement added.

It may be noted that the government had already released orders to procure 5,000 new buses at a cost of Rs 1,500 crore. “During the recent Assembly session, the Chief Minister had also announced to procure 2,000 buses at a cost of Rs 600 crore,” theofficial said.