Defunct city bus service - Congress leaders scoff at MC
Saturday, 08/11/2014
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2014/20141108/ldh1.htm#7
Ludhiana : Senior Congress leaders Ravneet Singh Bittu, MP, Bharat Bhushan Ashu, MLA, along with party councillors, today chided the Municipal Corporation over its failure to resume city bus service, which was lying defunct for the past more than four months.
The Congress leaders, including president of the District Congress Committee (Urban) Gurpreet Singh Gogi and several councillors, reached the bus parking depot adjoining the office of Sub-Registrar on the Humbran Road where they performed “aarti” of the stationary buses and also cleaned them up to focus on the problem of the local transport being faced by the city residents.
In a word of caution to the Civic Administration, the Congress leaders said if the bus service was not resumed within one-and-a-half month by the MC, they would be forced to run the buses and provide the local transport facility to the public in their own way, which however, was not specified.
Bittu and Ashu claimed that the erstwhile UPA Government had provided an amount of Rs 65 crore under the Centrally-funded Jawahar Lal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission Scheme for the city bus service in Ludhiana.
Due to the negligence on the part of the Punjab Government and the MC authorities, the city bus service had been discontinued since July when the contract of the then private company was revoked with the result that the buses went off the road, they added.
The Congress leaders apprehended that if the buses remained parked at the depot for some more time, these might become unroadworthy or turn into junk causing huge losses to the civic body, while at the same time leading to denial of an essential service to the city residents.
