Tender floated to procure 1,614 fully built non-AC buses for TNSTC

CHENNAI: The Institute of Road Transport has floated a tender to procure fully built 1,614 BS6 non-AC buses for the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) including 245 buses for the Metropolitan Transport Corporation.

The new buses are being procured with funding assistance from KfW, a German state-owned investment and development bank.

According to the request for proposal (RFP) invited by the IRT, as part of the modernisation plan, the TNSTC has issued the RFP for centralised procurement of 1,614 diesel buses for seven state transport undertakings including TNSTC Villupuram, Salem, Coimbatore, Kumbakonam, Madurai and Tirunelveli.

Already, the IRT has placed orders for the procurement of 552 non-AC low-floor buses for MTC, TNSTC Madurai and Coimbatore.

Out of the 1,614 buses to be procured, 950 would be 11 metres long with a floor height of 1,150 mm, while 484 semi-deluxe buses would be 11 metres long with an 1,150 mm floor height. As many as 180 deluxe buses would be 12 metres long with 1150 mm floor height.

The TNSTC Villupuram would get a maximum of 347 buses followed by Salem and Coimbatore getting 303 buses each. Tirunelveli would get 50 buses.

The IRT has floated the tender for the second time after the first tender was challenged in the Madras High Court in 2022. The HC had directed the State government to increase the number of low-floor buses from 442 to 552 after a writ petition was filed by the Disability Rights Alliance (DRA) challenging the procurement of high-floor buses. The court had also ordered the government to reduce the number of high-floor buses from 1,107 to 950 and to procure 157 low-floor buses.