Bangalore: CM proposes massive buying of 4,684 buses at Rs 2,919 crore
 
From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore
 
Bangalore, Sep 16: As part of the Congress government’s plan to woo Bangaloreans, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has come out massive plans for the purchase of 4,684 buses and also improve the transport infrastructure at a cost of  Rs 2,919 crore.

The chief minister, who launched BIG Trunk Bus Services of the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) at the Vidhana Soudha on Monday, said the proposal to go in for massive buying of buses and improvement of  transport infrastructure was aimed at decongest ing traffic Bangalore City traffic and improve connectivity between the various cities and the suburbs.

He said the Government has submitted a comprehensive proposal to the Centre seeking funds to purchase 2500 buses to Bangalore City under the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).

Siddaramaiah said a total of 4684 buses would be purchased to provide increased connectivity to various districts and towns and cities within districts.

The estimated cost for purchase of buses has been put at Rs 2063 crore, he said.

Another Rs 856 crore would be required to construct workshops, bus-stands, bus depots and other infrastructure.

This is significantly higher than other cities of similar size and with similar bus ridership number such as Seoul (500 routes), London (700 routes) and Shanghai (1000 routes).

Currently, BMTC operates 6500 buses on 2400 routes, on an average only 2.7 buses per route.
 

BMTC launches 62 BIG Trunk buses
 
Tranport Minister B Ramalinga Reddy said the 62 BIG Bus Network consisted of four types of services:

Big Trunk (high frequency services along the 12 major arterial roads in Bangalore); Big Circle (high frequency circular services on the Outer Ring Road); Big City (high frequency routes serving high demand, high density corridors in the city centre) and Big Connect (high frequency connectivity between arterial roads beyond ORR).

To begin with, BMTC would operate 62 Big Trunk buses on Hosur road to provide connectivity to nearly 3 lakh daily commuters.

It would improve services to employees working in industrial areas such as Electronic City, Bommasandra, Attibele, Chandapura.

Big Trunk bus operates between Kempe Gowda Bus Station and Electronic City, KBS and Chandapura and KBS and Attibele Circle. 

The route has been designated as KBS- 3E (KBS to Electronic City); KBS- 3 (KBS to Chandapura) and KBS- 3A (KBS-Attibele).

Thus, a Big trunk from KBS to Electronic City will be marked as 3E, KBS to Chandapura 3C and KBS to Attibele 3A.

BMTC project seeks to increase local connectivity with minimum change of buses, thereby, encouraging more people to use public transport.