A BSRTC bus in Patna. Telegraph picture

Patna, Nov. 6: The much-hyped Mercedes air-conditioned buses are set to make the residents of Bihar wait for at least a couple of more weeks.

The state transport department had earlier promised to roll out these buses by Diwali. However, owing to the delay in bus delivery, it is now planning to launch the service in the next 15 days.

“We are still pursuing the supplier, who has delayed the delivery of the Mercedes AC buses. We are hoping to receive the buses within the next 10 days after which we would be able to launch the services within another five days,” said minister of state transport department Brishen Patel.

He added: “The citizens can expect the launch of the inter-state Mercedes AC buses within the next 15 days.”

Sources in the transport department told The Telegraph that it has received the papers for the 32 AC buses.

These buses would be operated by Bihar State Road Transport Corporation (BSRTC) on 17 routes between Bihar and Jharkhand.

While 10 of these routes would connect Patna with other district headquarters in the state, seven routes would take citizens from Patna, Gaya and Bhagalpur to four district headquarters in the neighbouring state.

BSRTC has already obtained the permit for Bihar-Jharkhand routes. Sources in the corporation said it is now waiting for the buses to arrive.

While the launch of these air-conditioned buses is being delayed, the state transport department is in its final stages of preparation to run these buses. Trial runs on different routes of the proposed inter-state buses were recently conducted using a demo air-conditioned bus of BSRTC.

“It is important to know whether the Mercedes buses would run smoothly on the different routes and that is why we conducted the trial runs to assess the driving and road conditions,” said an official of BSRTC.

Apart from the inter-state buses, the transport department is also mulling to run low-floor buses between Vaishali district and the state capital.

“I want to start the services of low-floor buses between Vaishali and the state capital. But there are a few hurdles. Several experts have said that these buses might be damaged owing to the bad condition of Gandhi Setu. However, we are working on other aspects of this scheme,” the state transport minister said.

While plans for low-floor buses from Vaishali might be facing technical glitches, the town is all set to have a ring route bus service. “The department is working to introduce ring route bus services in Vaishali and later in Bhagalpur,” Patel added.

The proposed bus service for Vaishali would be on the lines of existing ring route bus services in Patna and Gaya.

Moreover, the state transport department is also planning to launch the ring route bus service for Darbhanga wi-thin a week, wherein a fleet of seven buses would run on six different routes in the town.