KTCL to commission five buses under JNNURM today

PANAJI: Kadamba Transport Corporation Limited (KTCL) will launch five of its low-floor buses procured under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) in Goa on Tuesday. It has taken the KTCL more than a year to put on road five of the 20 buses procured by them.
Incidentally, the buses had been lying unused at the Ashok Leyland depot for a considerable amount of time.KTCL chairman Deepak Dhavlikar said, "No one till date has seriously looked into the matter. We were recently able to get the finance department to release 3.75 crore to procure the first lot of buses."
The KTC chairman also explained that as the buses were lying unused, the time consumed to service and repaint them further contributed to the delay. "If not for this, the buses would have been on the roads in November," Dhavlikar said.
Managing director of the KTC Venancio Furtado said, "The five buses will ply the nationalized route from Margao to Panaji and one bus will ply to Ponda. These buses will be semi-express and will mainly cater to those travelling to the Goa Medical College and Hospital (GMC) and the Verna industrial estate."
The buses are equipped with a GPRS system, and can be monitored via the Internet by officials. Each bus also has automatic doors which are controlled by the bus driver. The LED display boards, besides indicating the destination of the bus, are also equipped with audio-visual features. Each bus can seat 42 people. "There will be a different type of seating arrangement too. For instance, a family of four travelling in these buses can opt to sit across one other like in a train," Furtado said. These buses also comprise special air suspension and a spacious gangway.
Furtado said that the fare along the Margao-Panaji route will remain the same, i.e. 20 per commuter. The bus will halt at various places such as Bambolim, Pilar, Cortalim, and Verna.
Meanwhile, the KTC chairman said that the other routes chalked out by the corporation are Panaji-Vasco and Margao-Mapusa. "However due to the shortage of drivers, it will take another 15 days before operations on these routes begin," he added. KTC presently has 700 drivers to run its 320-strong fleet of buses.
When asked when the remaining 15 buses will be operational, KTC's MD Furtado said, "This will happen by the end of January. Since the current year is almost ending, we will be able to receive funds only in January. The release of the funds also depends on the report sent by us in which we will have to describe the performance of the five commissioned buses. Only if the government is satisfied with this report will it release money for the remaining buses. The government till date has relased 50% of the money." Refuting allegations that the buses have been lying unused for over a year, Furtado said, "The buses have been delivered to the KTC in early 2010," He added that the corporation also plans to ply more buses on the Vasco route as soon as possible.
These semi low floor buses have been built by Ashok Leyland at a cost of 22.5 lakh per bus. The total cost of 20 buses is estimated to be approximately 5 crore.