After 17-month hiatus, BRTS service to resume from today
After a gap of 17 months, the Municipal Corporation is finally going to resume the metro bus service under Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) on December 6. Officials of the Municipal Corporation along with MC Commissioner Gulpreet Singh Aulakh conducted a technical run of the metro bus in BRTS corridor today. Aulakh boarded the bus and inspected the BRTS route.
The MC will restart the operation of metro bus on a trial basis from Friday onward. The MC has outsourced the work to a private firm, which hired drivers on collector rates. The firms outsourced for technical staff were already working with the BRTS and the MC has asked them to resume their services. MC officials claimed that the repair of buses was going on and 60 buses would start operating soon.
MC Commissioner Gulpreet Singh Aulakh said, “Today, we have conducted a technical run and inspected the route of BRTS. Initially, we are going to operate a few buses on trial basis for one week.”
The MC staff claimed that commuting would be free of cost for the first three weeks and the passengers will have to pay the fare, as per the previous list, after this period. The MC will operate the metro buses on route 201 only. It would ply between Golden Gate and India Gate. On this route, passengers for Guru Nanak Dev University, Khalsa College, Putaligarh, railway station, bus stand, New Amritsar and Golden Gate would be accommodated. The students of educational institutions would be a major beneficiary of the route, who will travel free of cost like in the previous arrangement. After three months, the bus routes would be extended. According to information received, the MC is planning to connect the international airport with Golden Temple to accommodate the air passengers.
Tomorrow, Cabinet Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal would inaugurate the trial run of metro buses from India Gate at 10 am.
