Puducherry seeks centre's funds for replacing 15-year-old buses
PUDUCHERRY: Transport Minister Chandira Priyanga has urged the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) to allocate funds to the union territory under the vehicle fleet modernisation scheme in order to replace the 15-year-old buses owned by the Puducherry Road Transport Corporation (PRTC) and to provide a one year extension of the vehicle scrapping policy for the public buses.
Speaking at the meeting of transport ministers of states and UTs under the chairmanship of Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari at New Delhi on Monday, she said that while MoRTH has allocated Rs 2,000 crore for vehicle fleet modernisation, no fund has been allocated for the replacement of old vehicles in UTs.
PRTC has a fleet size of 175 stage carriage buses and 90% of them have almost completed 15 years. Scrapping these vehicles will bring a huge financial burden and will affect intra-inter state transportation.
The minister also sought funds for taking up road safety projects like junction improvements and procurement of weigh-in-motion machinery among others. Usually projects are implemented from the revenue generated from compounding of offences and penalties from rule violators. These meagre funds won't be enough for bigger projects, she said.
Further, she suggested a modification of All India Tourist Vehicles (Authorisation or Permit) Rules, 2021 so that the permit holder could be given the option to choose their operational states and the revenue collected could be shared among those states and/or UTs only. This will pave the way for smooth operations and solve the issue of Puducherry receiving a lower share of revenue than the previous tourist vehicle permits.
Stating that the state transport corporation is reeling under a severe financial crunch, she urged the ministry to include Puducherry under the FAME 2 scheme as a special case. Under this scheme, cities with a population of more than four million get subsidies for purchasing electric buses. Puducherry is already in the process of upgrading PRTC with electric buses. Purchase of 25 e-buses is underway and the UT is also coming out with an e-vehicle policy by the end of this month.