Lucknow: The day is not far when roadways buses will be available for people to travel from village to city. For this, on the basis of the earlier survey report, approval has been given to operate contracted buses.
Under this, buses will run for rural areas adjacent to 13 cities. Approval to provide bus service to 86 villages adjacent to Lucknow and 50 villages of Kanpur has been received on March 6. For this, contract tender has been issued from private operators. According to the tender, as the contract for the buses gets finalized, the buses will start operating from the identified rural areas.
Work has started at a rapid pace on the contracted bus scheme 2023 to provide buses from village to village. Under this, at least 40 to 100 km.
Buses will run within the radius. Roadways will not run its buses on these identified routes. The survey revealed the need for 988 buses for 676 villages. There is a plan to run 28 seater mini buses in rural areas where there will be one lane roads and 40 seater buses on two lane roads.
These buses will run from the city to tehsils and blocks in rural areas. In these, travel facility will also be available through MST.
Apart from 86 villages adjacent to Lucknow, 50 from Kanpur, 108 from Hardoi, 72 from Banaras, 25 from Agra, 26 from Aligarh, 95 from Bareilly, 28 from Ghaziabad, 32 from Jhansi, 34 from Moradabad, 59 from Meerut and Etawah region. Approval has been given to run roadways buses on contract on 45 routes.
Lucknow Zone Regional Manager RK Tripathi said that preparations have been started to connect those villages with bus service, where buses did not run. On March 6, approval was given from the headquarters level to run contracted buses between 13 cities including Lucknow. Buses will be operated on contract with private operators through tender. Within 90 days, contracted bus services of roadways will start running between all the identified areas.