Patna, Jan. 25: Residents of the state may want to travel in luxury inter-state buses but there are few vehicles on the road to ferry them.

On December 10 last year, chief minister Nitish Kumar had launched nine Mercedes and two Volvo buses of a fleet of 120 swanky vehicles under the ambitious inter-state luxury coach service of Bihar State Road Transport Corporation (BSRTC).

Nearly two months on, six of those buses are standing idle at Sultan Palace — BSRTC’s headquarters — in the state capital. They are waiting for permits to go on the road. Four more luxury buses are waiting at other depots of BSRTC in the state. Moreover, 30 buses are waiting idle with the operator of this bus service because of delay in the issue of permits.

The State Transport Authority (STA) is responsible for issuing the permits.

A senior officer of the service provider, Girish Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd told The Telegraph: “We have provided 15 buses till date to BSRTC but few of them still have not been issued permits. We also have a fleet of 30 more buses ready to ply on the roads. But we are forced to keep them idle because permits for these have not been issued. We have an agreement with leading luxury bus manufacturers, including Mercedes and Volvo, for 120 vehicles. We are unable to take delivery of these buses as we do not have space to park these expensive vehicles.”

He added: “We also have an agreement with BSRTC to provide 120 buses for various inter-state routes connecting Bihar with Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha and Chhatisgarh. However, both these agreements will be annulled because of the delay in permits by the STA.”

BSRTC and Girish Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd run the luxury buses service in public-private partnership.

On the delay in the permits, BSRTC officials said they too were helpless. “The operator keeps asking us to accept the delivery of the buses but we are forced to deny it because the STA is not issuing the permits. We have four buses parked at our headquarters for the past two months. These vehicles are very expensive, priced at nearly Rs 1 crore each. We don’t have space to park more buses safely. Moreover, more than 100 applications for permits for our buses are pending with the STA for many months,” said a BSRTC official.

Transport minister Brishen Patel said: “There is an issue looming large over the operations of buses by BSRTC. STA has raised few reservations and even sought legal opinion of BSRTC on several issues, including the ownership of the buses. For instance, STA wants to fix the responsibility of the buses on either BSRTC or the operator. Accordingly, we are considering necessary changes in the agreement with the operator to accommodate stipulations prescribed by STA. I have asked officials concerned to resolve all issues and put more buses on the road at the earliest.”

Low on employees

BSRTC has failed to ply any direct bus from Motihari to the state capital because of acute shortage of employees at its depot. The shortage has lasted for the past six months.

At present, two buses ply between Raxaul and Patna and stop at Motihari to pick passengers.