CUTTACK: After abrupt termination of city bus service in the Millennium City, 30 buses parked on the premises of Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) for the last three years are slowly but surely getting damaged for lack of use and maintenance.
The city bus service was planned by the CMC on public-private-partnership (PPP) mode in order to provide a better transport system to several areas in the city outskirts. An agreement was signed between Cuttack Urban Transport Service Limited (CUTSL) and Sahara Roadways Private Limited (SRPL) for the purpose under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik inaugurated the service in April, 2016.
After the inauguration, 10 buses started plying from the Silver City to several places like Choudwar, Jagatpur, Manguli, Gopalpur, Biju Patnaik Square, Bidanasi, Trisulia and Banki. However, after a few months of its operation, the service was discontinued.
While initially, 10 city buses were plying, the rest 20 buses remained unused for lack of registration. After finding discrepancy in date of purchase and date of permit, the Regional Transport Office, Cuttack issued a letter to CMC to pay a fine amounting to ` four lakh. Meanwhile, SRPL claimed that it incurred huge loss for plying only 10 buses and hence pulled back from the partnership. Though CUTSL at a meeting in November, 2017 had decided to repair the damaged buses and resume the service, it failed to do so due to lack of interest on the part of the authorities concerned.
While the buses lying open on the premises of Bikash Bhawan are getting damaged, people have been deprived of bus service for which fund amounting to `7.8 crore was spent. Besides, costly accessories like GPRS and cameras, LED lights and meter box have been stolen for lack of watch and guard facility. CMC Commissioner Ananya Das said a meeting will be convened soon to take a decision on the matter.