A Volvo bus of Gireesh Infrastructure Private Limited set ablaze in Muzaffarpur on July 13. Telegraph picture

The much-touted inter-state luxury bus service of Bihar State Road Transport Corporation (BSRTC) is facing a bumpy ride.

According to sources, 16 out of 29 Mercedes and Volvo buses supplied by Hyderabad-based Gireesh Infrastructure Private Limited to BSRTC are standing idle for more than six months at BSRTC’s headquarters at Sultan Palace owing to non-issuance of respective road permits.

The private operator is also not able to run these luxury buses in Bihar safely because of attacks on these vehicles by criminals.

“The window panes of many buses have been broken because of stone pelting. We have written about such issues to the district administration and BSRTC but the situation has remained the same. Such people damage our buses for no particular reason but we have to shell out over Rs 50,000 in replacing the glass. One of our Volvo buses was set ablaze at Muzaffarpur on July 13. However, not a single arrest has been made. Considering such circumstances, it is getting more difficult to safely run the buses,” said Gireesh Kumar Sanghi, the chairman of the firm.

Each bus costs over Rs 1 crore and operators claimed they are facing losses to the tune of Rs 3 lakh per month on each bus that stands idle.

“We have plans to invest Rs 1,000 crore in Bihar in 2012-2013 to develop world-class public transport system by operating high-end buses like Mercedes and Volvo. However, our experience in running these luxury buses in Bihar has been tormenting. Though we have delivered 29 buses to BSRTC till date, only 13 of them are running on the roads. The remaining 16 are standing idle in absence of issuance of permits, which is the responsibility of the corporation,” said Gireesh.

He added: “We want to run our buses on routes connecting major cities in Bihar to Bengal, Odisha and Chhattisgarh. We have already got routes approved for running buses from Bihar to Howrah near Calcutta, Bhubaneswar, Rourkela, Ambikapur and Jaspur and other cities under agreements between the corresponding state governments. However, we are forced to either keep our buses standing idle or to stall the delivery of the buses to BSRTC because of non-issuance of permits,” said Gireesh.

However, BSRTC has passed the buck on to Gireesh Infrastructure. “The private partner in inter-state luxury bus scheme is probably trying to deliver the buses in a piecemeal manner. It is because of this reason that more luxury buses are not being run at present,” said BSRTC administrator Uday Singh Kumawat.

Chief minister Nitish Kumar had inaugurated the first fleet of nine luxury buses on December 10 last year at Sultan Palace. Both Mercedes and Volvo buses are proposed to run under this service. The 53-seater luxury coaches are powered by Euro III engine and are equipped with state-of-the-art facilities.