14/05/2017
PUNE: PMPML officials might appear upbeat over
the possibility to get its fleet strengthened with 1,500 new buses, but
transport experts and residents say such a "pledge without a deadline is
only an eyewash".
The civic body has in its
annual draft budget for 2017-18 allocated Rs 392 crore for the Pune Mahanagar
Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML) and the corpus is meant for procuring the
new buses, among other expense heads.
Reacting to the Pune
Municipal Corporation's (PMC) allocation, a senior PMPML official said 200 midi
buses were expected to reach the city in the next two months. "However,
the issue of procuring the much-hyped air-conditioned buses turned out to be a
mystery and nothing can be said on this at present," he told pune-news.com.
"Work on the midi buses,
which are slightly bigger than the standard mini buses, is in the final stages.
The prototype inspections are over. But it is better not to say anything on the
AC buses now. We are clueless about it," the official said.
Around two-three months ago,
the PMPML officials were much enthusiastic about the AC buses. In February,
they had said around 550 buses would by April. "The file is with the CMD.
He will review it and take the final call," another official said.
Similar is the situation with
the procurement of the all-women Tejaswini buses, a plan of the state
government. "We had sought 100 buses. It is difficult to state any
specific deadline for their arrival," the official said.
He also could not shed any light
on the time needed to procure 800 standard CNG buses. "A tender is likely
to be floated soon. But at this moment, we cannot discuss much on it as nothing
has been finalised."
Jugal Rathi, president of the PMP Pravasi Manch, said the
transport utility was moving towards the wrong direction. "All these plans
were announced almost two years ago. They make announcements as the plans for Smart City are on. All
they want to show is that there's some development in terms of local
transport."
He added, "The PMPML has
failed to understand is that only adding buses will not solve the problem. The
AC buses had come way back when the trial run of the BRTS was on. But they soon
developed snags and vanished from the roads."
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