80 new BS6 buses to operate under Vidiyal Payanam scheme: Transport minister

CHENNAI: Transport Minister SS Sivasankar announced on Sunday that the MTC will be adding 80 new BS6 ordinary buses to its fleet.

These new BS6 buses, excluding low-floor buses, will operate as ordinary buses and provide free travel to women and transgender passengers, under the Vidiyal Payanam scheme, he confirmed.

In a statement, the minister also mentioned that the transport corporation has already added 1,905 new buses to its fleet out of an announced plan to procure 2000 new buses for the years 2022-23 and 2023-24.

Additionally, 1,262 old buses have been refurbished and added to the fleet. They are part of the 1,500 buses that were announced for refurbishment.

The MTC has also added 41 new low-floor buses to its fleet through funding from German development bank KfW, in addition to the already existing 228 low-floor buses.

A procurement order for a total of 552 low-floor buses have been placed by the transport department, including 352 such buses for the MTC, traffic kfW funding.

Regarding the announcement to procure 3,000 new buses in 2024-25, the transport minister stated that 162 new buses were added to the fleets of transport corporations other than the MTC, and that 80 buses were added to the MTC on Sunday. This adds up to 242 new low-floor buses.

The MTC, in total, has added 269 low-floor buses and 110 new high-floor buses to its fleet.