From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore
Bangalore, Oct 26: The state government has decided to set up a separate transport corporation for Mysore city on the lines of the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation as part of the conditionalities from the Centre for availing funds from the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) for undertaking reforms in the transport sector.
A decision for setting up of the Mysore City Transport Corporation was taken at a meeting of the KSRTC board meeting, transport and home minister R Ashok announced on Tuesday.
The decision to set up the corporation for Mysore was taken to meet certain norms that the Centre placed in JNNURM, under which purchase of 150 buses to Mysore city was permitted.
The transport minister also indicated that the department planned to operate city bus services in four prominent district headquarters including Mangalore soon. The other three district headquarters in which the Transport Department planned to operate city bus services are: Tumkur, Gulbarga and Hubli.
Bus stands at Bantwal Cross Road (B C Road), off Mangalore, Hassan and Hunsur would be developed under public-private-partnership model, Ashok said.
The cultural capital of state, Mysore city, is the first non-metro city in the country, to receive a World Bank funded intelligent transport system (ITS) for public transport which allows commuters access to real time bus travel information and also facilitates effective monitoring of their movement, the minister said.
The project would be completed in 14 months from the date of awarding the contract and is expected to cover purchase of 500 buses, construction of 105 bus stops and six bus terminals and 45 platforms in the city. KSRTC in Mysore caters to the city population of over 2.2 million.
The project will be funded by World Bank’s global environment Fund (GEF), the Union government and state government and the rest through internal accruals. KSRTC’s ITS initiative, which is first in the country to be taken up on a pilot basis is to become a model/case study to other cities in the country.
The minister said Mandya would have city bus services and about 50 buses would be purchased for the purpose. A satellite bus terminal would be constructed at Peenya, off Bangalore city limits, to decongest the main hub in Majestic area in the city.
In the main bus stand (Kempe Gowda bus-stand), 7.2 acres of land had been handed over to the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd for the metro project at a cost of Rs 75 crore, he said pointing out that about 1200 KSRTC buses operate from Majestic.
He said KSRTC became debt free two months ago after clearing accumulated loan amount of Rs 500 crore.
The Traffic and Transit Management Centre at Kengeri here would be named after Kengal Hanumanthaiah, who constructed the Vidhan Soudha, while the one at Shantinagar be named after former prime minister A B Vajpayee.