Patna, Feb. 22: Tourists traveling to Bodhgaya from the state capital would soon be able to cover the distance in swanky air-conditioned buses.

The Bihar State Tourism Development Corporation (BSTDC) has selected Mahindra Logistics Limited to operate a bus each for the up and down trips along the route. The corporation has also issued the work order and the commuters can expect these buses to be on the road in April.

“We have selected a firm that would run two AC deluxe buses on the Patna-Bodhgaya route. The firm has been given a month’s time to procure and deliver the buses,” said D.K. Shukla, the managing director of BSTDC.

The corporation had invited intending operators in the first week of December last year for running daily AC luxury buses on Patna-Bodhgaya and Patna-Valmikinagar Tiger Reserve (VTR) routes. “Mahindra Logistics Ltd would provide two 40-seater AC buses for operation on the Patna-Bodhgaya route. The buses would operate in a public-private-partnership mode,” said Shailendra Kumar, the general manager of BSTDC.

Once the new buses become operational, the tourists would be able to book tickets from the counter at BSTDC’s headquarters at hotel Kautilya Vihar on Buddha Marg in the state capital.

At present, four Volvo buses of BSTDC operate on two routes — Patna-Purnia and Patna-Ranchi. These buses also also start from the BSTDC headquarters.

Luxury buses apart, BSTDC has been successfully running four 35 seater (2/2) non-AC tourist buses on the Patna-Bodhgaya route since 1996. Two buses in the up and as many in the down trips cover the distance of about 110km between Patna and Bodhgaya in nearly four hours.

The buses leave Patna at 7am and 2pm daily. According to recent surveys, around 60 per cent of the international tourists comingto the state travel along the Patna-Bodhgaya and Rajgir-Nalanda routes.

Besides the Patna-Bodhgaya route apart, the corporation seems to be facing a tough time in finding operators for running similar luxury buses between other tourism destinations in the state.

“For some reason or the other, the corporation is not getting operators willing to run luxury buses on other tourism-based routes in the state including Patna-VTR, Patna-Nalanda-Rajgir and Patna-Kaimur among others. One of the reasons, sources said, is apprehen-sion of the operators about generation of sufficient revenue from based operations of buses,”a BSTDC official said.

He added: “If no operator shows interest in running buses on other routes, then the corporation may buy chassis from the manufacturer and get the body assembled on its own.”