Two years on, Mohali city bus service a non-starter

Akash Ghai
Tribune News Service
Mohali, September 24

Mohali residents’ wait for a city bus service seems to be endless as the project has apparently been put into cold storage.

Mohali Mayor Kulwant Singh claimed that the state government was not interested in starting the service, a long-pending demand of local residents.

“Not only the current state government, the previous SAD-BJP government too did not do anything to start the project. Both governments had been making announcements in this regard time and again,” said Kulwant Singh.

He added that the local MC had set aside nearly Rs 2 crore for purchasing buses under the project after Punjab Cabinet Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu announced that the town would soon have its own bus service. “The minister had made the announcement last year,” said the Mayor, adding that the corporation had enough funds to run the project.

“The ball is in the court of the state government. But I must say the project is lying in a cold storage at present,” he said.

The Mayor said the resolution for starting the city bus service was passed by the MC House on September 7, 2017. He added that the resolution was pending for approval at the office of the local government.

The MC House had also passed as many as 14 bus routes, covering all parts of the town along with some peripheral areas, under the city bus service project in its House meeting last year.

Then, the corporation had planned to run 50 buses on 14 routes in question in the first phase and for the routes permits, it had also sent communiqués to the Transport Department, Punjab. However, the civic body is yet to get a reply from the department.

It is pertinent to mention here that GMADA authorities too had contemplated the project around 10 years ago but it never saw the light of day.

So far, residents of the town are dependent on a small number of buses of the Chandigarh Transport Undertaking (CTU) that cover only a few selected routes here. “The town has swelled substantially in the past 10 years. Most of the newly developed areas here have no bus service and residents are largely dependent on personal vehicles, auto-rickshaws, radio cab service for transportation purposes,” said Kuljit Singh Bedi, local MC councillor.