In order to reduce the increasing air pollution in Dehradun city and to provide convenient and comfortable travel to the common people, the government has made preparations to phase out diesel city buses running in the city. In place of diesel buses, only CNG and electric buses will run in the city. For this, City Transport Corporation (CTC) will be formed, which will be under Uttarakhand Transport Corporation. The 30 electric buses currently operating under the Smart City project will also operate under CTC. Preparations are underway to provide subsidy to the transporter for introducing new CNG or electric buses.
UMTA meeting held
To improve the public transport service in the city, a meeting of the Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (UMTA) was held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Dr. SS Sandhu at the Secretariat on Thursday. During this, the formation of Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) was discussed. Under this, discussions were held on improving transport services in Dehradun city in the initial phase, while in the next phase in Rishikesh, Haridwar, Haldwani, Nainital and Kashipur.
Efforts are being made on operation of CNG city buses
Transport Department officials said that they have been trying to operate CNG city buses in the city for the last one year. For this, a meeting has also been held with city bus operators last year. Officials said that in the meeting, when a proposal was made to operate electric city buses in place of diesel city buses in the city, the city bus operators rejected it outright. He said that he cannot buy an electric bus worth Rs 1.25 crore.
Consensus being formed on electric and CNG buses
However, he had given conditional in-principle consent on CNG buses. The condition was that city bus operators should also be given subsidy on CNG buses on the lines of electric buses of the Smart City project. The private company operating electric buses is being paid Rs 67 per km by the Smart City Company.
Demand for subsidy has been made
City bus operators are demanding that they should be given 50 percent subsidy on purchasing CNG buses. The operators had told that the price of a 25 seater CNG bus is around Rs 25 lakh. If the government gives Rs 12.5 lakh as subsidy, then he is ready to bring CNG buses. Transporters also demanded to provide loan at four percent interest rate to city bus operators under the Veer Chandra Singh Garhwali Scheme run by the Tourism Department in the state.
