CHENNAI: The first bench of Madras High Court comprising Acting Chief Justice T Raja and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy on Tuesday ordered the state transport department to float fresh tender for purchasing 157 low-floor buses for metropolitan transport corporation (MTC) in Chennai, enabling easy access to persons with disabilities.
“The respondents are directed to float fresh tender for purchasing 157 low-floor buses out of 1,057 buses proposed to be procured,” the bench ordered. It added the fleet of lowfloor buses shall be increased substantially in the future in order to provide a better public transportation facility to the persons with disabilities.
The orders were passed on a batch of petitions filed by persons with disabilities, including activist Vaishnavi Jayakumar, who sought the court to issue direction to the state transport corporations to procure only low-floor buses. They also challenged a tender floated by the public transportation utility for purchasing new buses, saying the low-floor buses are less in number in the proposed purchase.