Jaipur News Desk: Public transport of Jaipur city has been in bad shape for last 5 years. Three times proposals were made to purchase 300 CNG and 50 electric buses in public transport, but the result was zero. Neither the Congress nor the BJP governments gave approval for the purchase of buses, whereas the situation is that JCTSL, which had 500 buses 5 years ago, now has only 200 buses left and by September 2025, 100 more buses will be junk. In such a situation, how will there be public transport in a city with a population of 45 lakhs with only 100 buses? At present 1.50 lakh passengers travel in 200 buses. According to the rules, buses are declared condemned after running for 8 years and 8 lakh kilometres.
50 electric buses were to be purchased in 2020, CIRT Pune report positive, financial approval not received from government
50 electric buses were to be purchased under the FAME-India scheme of the Central Government. Tender for 32 seater air conditioned buses. According to this, the responsibility of driver, maintenance, charging, insurance was of the contractor, while the conductors were to be of JCTSL. It was decided to pay Rs 66.50 per km to the bus contractor. After inspection of the demo bus, third party inspection was conducted by JCTSL CIRT Pune. The report was found positive, but the then MD Dr. Pratibha Singh sent the file to the government, but the approval was not received.
Approval given to buy 1 thousand buses in 2022
If approval was not given for the purchase of electric buses, then in the board meeting held on 20 October 2022 under the chairmanship of the then CMD Ajitabh Sharma, approval was given to purchase 1 thousand buses for JCTSL. Under this, a plan has been prepared to include 300 CNG buses in 2024. Buses were to be taken on the basis of service model. A few months after the meeting, the proposal for purchasing buses was sent to the government for approval, but even after a year, the purchase of buses was not approved. 3000 buses are needed for a population of 45 lakhs, there are not so many buses in the city, hence private vehicles are not available. pressure of
The capital currently has a population of about 45 lakh. For this, there are only 200 buses in public transport. Out of these, 100 buses will become junk by September 2025. After this, only 100 buses will be left, whereas according to the standards of the Ministry of Urban Affairs, there should be 6 buses per 10,000 population in public transport. According to this, there should be 3000 buses in the public transport of the capital, but including both government and private buses, there are not that many buses. Due to this, people have to travel by private vehicles and cabs and there is pressure of private vehicles on the roads.
The proposal for 300 buses is stuck with the Finance Department.
After the formation of the BJP government, a board meeting was held on 30 September 2024 under the leadership of JCTSL Chairman Rajesh Yadav. In view of the shortage of buses, it was decided to get 300 CNG buses service model. Officials have made a proposal and sent it to the Finance Department, but approval has not been received yet.
