‘File report on roads in city to use low-floor buses’

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Monday directed the Tamil Nadu transport department to find out the possible roads for operating the low-floor buses in city to accommodate persons with disability (PwD).

The first division bench of Acting Chief Justice T Raja and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy observed on hearing a petition filed by Vaishnavi Jayakumar, a disabled rights activist.

The petitioner sought direction to the State government to issue tenders in a way to procure low-floor buses so that disabled people can access them without any issues. The State submitted that it’d procure 442 low-floor buses for Chennai, Madurai, and Coimbatore corporations and would be plying them on the roads within 3 months. The government informed the court that about 100 low-floor electric buses would also be procured.

Recording the submissions, the judges directed the government to identify the roads where low-floor buses could and could not be operated. The bench also asked the State to submit a report on it.

The judges also mooted an idea that AAG J Ravindran, advocate Yogeswaran for the petitioner, and others could travel in a low-floor bus in Chennai to identify the roads that could be easy and difficult to operate them.

Earlier, the State Transport Department had informed the judges that only 1 private firm had wanted to procure buses that had 650 mm of ground clearance.

The matter has been adjourned to February 9.