Ranchi: Sixty-six city buses in the capital are grounded since the past two days as Ranchi Municipal Corporation has failed to find an operator to run them after sacking the earlier one for alleged malpractices.
These 66 are among the 91 buses for Ranchi under the Centre's AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation) scheme, formerly JNNURM. Among the 66 are 26 new buses purchased by the civic body last May.
Scrapping transporter Suresh Singh's contract with a month's notice, the RMC floated a tender on January 4 inviting applications from operators to run the 66 buses for five years, but no bidder came till January 23, the last date.
As Singh's notice period ended on January 23, the 66 buses won't run till a new tender is floated and a fresh deal is struck with a bidder, deputy municipal commissioner Sanjay Kumar said.
"Public transport in Nagri-Kantatoli, Tupudana-Pithoria and ITI-Booty More is badly hit," he said.
Explaining why Singh's five-year contract, signed last May, was scrapped on December 23, an RMC official said the charges against him were serious, including cash, route and GPS violations.
The official said two transporters were selected by tender last May, with Kishore Mantri getting 25 old city buses and Singh 66, including 26 new ones.
"Singh got three routes, Nagri-Kantatoli, Tupudana-Pithoria and ITI-Booty More, but ran buses only on the profit-making Nagri-Kantatoli route. He grounded old buses calling them technically unfit without the district transport department's fitness report. He paid rental only for new buses. But we came to know he was running some old buses on Nagri-Kantatoli," the official said.
Inspection revealed the GPS of some buses was tampered with so that the RMC's IT cell couldn't track them, he added.
Right now, Singh has to pay some Rs 35 lakh as bus rental and Rs 1.2 lakh as fine for damaging the GPS system of buses. He has not paid the sum, deputy municipal commissioner Kumar said.
Passengers are missing the buses. Regular commuter and Nagri resident Amit Munda said he took a city bus daily to his Kokar workplace for Rs 10 a ride. "If I take the auto, I spend Rs 30. Till the city bus comes back on this route, my budget will be badly hit," he said.
