An air-conditioned bus of Bihar State Road Transport Corporation. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Patna, June 2: The days of travelling to other districts on ramshackle buses will soon be over. You can now travel in style, courtesy Bihar State Road Transport Corporation (BSRTC).

The corporation is set to offer the citizens an inter-city luxury air-conditioned (AC) bus service by mid-July.

The corporation, an undertaking of the state government, had initiated the process of inviting applications from interested service providers to run a ring route bus service on the proposed routes in April this year.

A senior official of BSRTC said: “The idea behind these luxury AC buses is to provide a comfortable journey to the citizens while travelling between district headquarters. A total of 92 luxury AC buses are proposed to run on 17 routes in the state. While 10 of these routes would connect Patna with the other district headquarters in the state, four routes would take citizens from Patna to four district headquarters in neighbouring Jharkhand.”

Citizens are naturally excited over the new mode of transport.

“Earlier we used to feel bad when we saw high-class Volvo buses in other cities like Delhi, Punjab, Pune and Bangalore. Besides, travelling on the inter-city buses in our state used be a dismal experience because of the bad condition of the buses. However, now we would also pride ourselves with these AC buses. Public transport in Bihar is definitely going from good to better,” said Ravi Parmar, a resident of Patna.

The formalities to open the service to the residents of the state are almost over, the official said.

“We have shortlisted the service providers for the various routes and agreement with them has also been finalised. At present, we are in the process of obtaining permits for all these buses from the authorities concerned. Although we cannot confirm whether all 92 buses would start running from mid-July, more than 30 would definitely start running by then,” the official said.

The official added that the brand new buses should be higher and luxury coaches of renowned companies, including Volvo and Mercedes Benz.

According to departmental documents, the agreement between the service provider and BSRTC is for 10 years and the proposed 92 buses would operate from the BSRTC bus depot.

The corporation would also provide a subsidy amount to the extent of 25 per cent of the cost of the bus subject to an upper limit of Rs 20 lakh on each bus in the scheme. Another clause of the agreement states that the service provider shall share 10 per cent of the revenue based on the total seating capacity and fare up to full distance of a bus route with the BSRTC.