On February 24, chief minister Nitish Kumar will inaugurate the much-delayed multi-level parking facility at Buddha Smriti Park and 140 buses to run as public transport in Patna, Gaya, Chhapra and Darbhanga.
The multi-level parking near the busy Patna Junction roundabout will accommodate 480 vehicles at a time. The city bus services will be the state's first such government-run public transport facilities.
"The chief minister has given his consent for inauguration of around 15 schemes, including multi-level parking facility and city service buses," said urban development and housing department minister Maheshwar Hazari. "While the multi-level parking facility would be run by Bihar Urban Infrastructure Development Corporation (Buidco), the city service buses would be run by Bihar State Road Transport Corporation."
Sources said around 10 schemes related to e-municipal governance - such as birth and death registration, payment of holding taxes, etc - will also be inaugurated during the event.
The semi-automated parking facility at Buddha Smriti Park has been ready since early-2013, but has remained unused. Initially, there were issues related to parking charges. Then came the logjam over its approach road, the development of which started from Buddha Marg in August-September last year.
The parking facility has lateral slope entry and circular exit ramps. The entry is from the western side, coming from Buddha Marg through the lane adjacent to erstwhile Pearl cinema. The exit is on the Station Road facing Mahavir Mandir. Each floor has toilets and a terrace garden at the peripheral boundary.
The parking rate has been kept at Rs 30 per hour per four-wheeler.
For the city transport service, Buidco procured 40 buses under the centrally sponsored Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). The buses went off streets on December 11 last year following non-payment issues between AB Grain Spirits Pvt. Ltd, the transport wing of Adie Broswon that ran the buses, and Buidco.
The operation of these buses had started after a delay of over five years. The central sanctioning and monitoring committee under JNNURM in its 69th meeting held on February 20 and 21, 2009, had approved the purchase of 260 buses for Rs 45 crore. Five-and-a-half years later, on August 15, 2014, then urban development and housing department minister Samrat Choudhary had flagged off the first lot of 20 buses equipped with closed-circuit television cameras and global positioning system (GPS).
Sixteen months later, AB Grain withdrew its services citing non-payment. Buidco had then handed over the buses to the Bihar State Road Transport Corporation (BSRTC). Buidco had also transferred another fleet of 101 buses to the BSRTC, which are yet to be put into operation.
