Studying feasibility to introduce premium AC bus services in Chennai: Transport Minister SS Sivasankar

CHENNAI: Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) is studying the feasibility of introducing premium air-conditioned bus services with WiFi facilities to attract people towards public transportation in the city.

"To make those who are using private transport to switch to public transportation and reduce vehicular emissions in Chennai city, we are studying the feasibility of introducing the premium AC bus services with comfy seats, Wi-Fi, GPS, CCTV cameras and emergency buttons," Transport Minister SS Sivasankar said while replying to the demands for grants for the Transport Department at the State Assembly here.

Under the World Bank-funded Chennai City Partnership scheme, he said that 500 electricity buses would be procured through the Gross Cost Contract in the second phase.

"The state government would provide the viability gap fund to bridge the gap between the expenditure and the revenue. MTC would decide the routes and fares while the operator would take care of the e-bus procurement, maintenance and operation. Through this, the MTC will be able to deliver better services to the passengers, " he said.

It may be noted that the MTC has floated bids for the procurement of 500 e-buses through the GCC in the first phase.

To ensure the safety of the passengers, he said that automatic doors would be fixed in all the buses operated by the transport corporations.

In the first phase, it would be fixed on 3,886 buses at Rs 15.54 crore.

He also announced that all the town buses would be fixed with under-run protection to achieve zero accident targets.

As part of the scheme, he said that 8771 buses would be fixed at Rs 8.77 crore.

On the charges of operation of aged buses, the Minister said the government has initiated steps to procure 8,182 new buses including 1000 electric buses for the transport corporations.

"Out of the 8,182 new buses, 1,088 buses were added to the fleet so far. MTC will incorporate 500 e-buses into its fleet as a component of the World Bank project, " he said.

He noted that MTC would get low-floor buses in July with bodybuilding of 552 buses procured under the German funding agency taking place in Rajasthan.

Blaming the previous AIADMK government for the operation of the aged buses, he said that during the DMK regime in 2006-11, it had procured 15,000 new buses in five years while in the 10 years of AIADMK, they procured only 14,000 new buses.

Sivasankar also announced a plan to launch logistics and parcel services through the transport corporations.

On the mini-bus policy, he said that the public hearing for the new mini-bus policy would be held in July and the scheme would be rolled out in August and September.