Come November, 100 diesel buses of Chandigarh Transport Undertaking to go off tricity roads

Commuters in the tricity are likely to face inconvenience as nearly 100 diesel buses of the Chandigarh Transport Undertaking (CTU) operating on local routes will be condemned in November this year.

After reaching their operational lifespan, the buses will no longer be roadworthy and have to be removed from the local routes, said officials of the UT Transport Department.

These 100 aging diesel buses, currently operating from Depot No. 4, are to be replaced by electric buses. The existing fleet, which includes non-AC green and AC red automatic diesel buses, was allotted to the city under a special scheme during the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

The department had submitted a proposal to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for the procurement of environment-friendly buses under the Central government’s PM e-Bus Sewa scheme so that the Administration can process the tender at its level and buy 100 electric buses as replacement of diesel buses. However, the proposal is yet to be approved.

Officials stated that it was now certain that even if the approval was received, there would be a shortage of buses on the local route by the end of this year, as it would take at least two to three months to finalise the tender process and select the company. Even if the process was completed by August or September, the selected company would not be able to deliver 100 buses till November, they added.

The shortage of buses would affect routes of Chandigarh as well as Mohali and Panchkula as only CTU buses run for public transportation in the tricity. Officials said buses could be diverted from the long routes to the local routes, but it would affect the long routes, from which the CTU gets more revenue. About 350 buses of CTU run on local routes while about 230 run on long routes.

Chandigarh