BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Thursday approved extension of Mo Bus services to nine more cities and urban areas of the state covering three districts - Ganjam, Sambalpur and Jharsuguda.Housing and Urban Development (H&UD) department sources said the service will now be available in Sambalpur-Jharsuguda-Brajarajnagar-Belpahar and Berhampur-Gopalpur-Chhatrapur-Hinjilicut-Digapahandi clusters of the three districts. Around 11.61 lakh people residing in these areas will be benefitted with the extension of the Mo Bus service, they added.
As per the notification from the H&UD department, the Western Odisha Urban Transport Service Limited (WOUTSL) constituted in May 2013 and the Ganjam Urban Transport Services Limited (GUTSL) formed in February 2013 to provide city bus service in Sambalpur-Bargarh-Jharsuguda and Berhampur-Chhatrapur-Gopalpur-Hinjilicut clusters will now be dissolved as the Capital Region Urban Transport (CRUT), a special purpose vehicle (SPV), formed to manage the Mo Bus service in the Capital Region in 2018, will provide the service in these extended areas.
Accordingly, the WOUTSL and GUTSL managements have been asked to take necessary steps to transfer their entire paid-up share capital to CRUT under the Companies Act 2013 and the Companies (Management and Administration) rules 2014.The Mo Bus services was first introduced in the Capital Region in November, 2018 covering Bhubaneswar-Cuttack-Puri and Khurda. However, with growing time, it became a convenient mode of public transportation that drastically eased the daily commuting needs of the citizens and became the most-preferred mode of transportation for many.
After catering to around 2.3 lakh passengers every day with a fleet of 390 buses, the service was extended to Rourkela-Biramitrapur-Rajgangpur Master Plan area of Sundargarh district during the Hockey World Cup 2023 in January with 100 buses and a ridership of 27,000.H&UD officials said the state government is committed to enhance the public transportation system and meet the evolving needs of citizens and expansion of Mo Bus services to Sambalpur, Jharsuguda and Ganjam is a step towards achieving this goal.