Cuttack, March 21: Waiting for buses under the scorching summer sun will soon be thing of the past for citizens of the Millennium City.

A few months ago, the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) had planned to build bus shelters, with comfortable sitting arrangements for the public, provision for kiosks and display screens for messages. Construction work on 11 bus shelters is on and, CMC authorities say, they would become functional in a few months, some as early as April.

The CMC has already started constructing bus shelters in different places across the city on Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis through a five-year contract with private operators.“The bus shelter project work is moving at a fast pace,” CMC secretary, Ashutosh Samal, told The Telegraph today.

“The project has been started at six of the 11 locations identified for bus shelters in the first phase. Before April 1 they are expected to be complete,” he said adding that work on the five locations would follow in the second phase.Samal said the construction work could not be started in these remaining five locations because of encroachments.

“The project idea is to provide bus shelters for commuters, especially of town buses, as part of reforms aimed at service delivery that is qualitative, reliable and sustainable,” said Samal. The civic body presently runs two town buses while private operators about 20 odd town buses in the city. CMC had divided the 11 identified sites into two clusters and allotted one cluster to one private party for design, finance, erection and maintenance of the bus shelters on the basis of location plan provided by the survey section of the civic body.

Under the BOT model civic body project, the private operators will be responsible for smooth maintenance of the bus shelter and bear the overall costs for it and foot the monthly electricity bills too.

“In fact, they will build, operate and maintain the bus shelter for five years and then transfer it to the civic body,” CMC’s finance, taxation and accounts committee head, Akhay Beura, told The Telegraph today.

“During these five years the private operator will have the sole and exclusive advertising rights on the bus shelters but will pay the advertisement tax / licence fees on the kiosks and glow signs exhibited in the bus shelter annually to CMC at Rs 6 per sqft,” Beura added.

The locations where the civic body had planned the bus shelters include OMP Square (Near Market Complex), in front of Nishamani Talkies, Link Road (in front of BSNL office), Link Road (in front of Arunodaya Nagar Market), Badambadi (in front of Puri bus stand), Badambadi (opposite Hotel Grand Residency), Markatnagar (opposite market complex), Markatnagar (in front of Eye Hospital), College Square (in front of Ravenshaw University), Buxi Bazar (near GPO) and Mission Road (in front of Shailabala Women’s College). “Bus shelters are one of the much needed civic needs which were not addressed in the city earlier. A bus shelter here will serve town bus commuters, especially students of colleges,” said Subada Das, a student of Shailabala Women’s College.

“The bus shelters have not been planned just for town bus commuters. Those planned at Badambadi and Link Road near the bus terminus would also serve other bus commuters,” a CMC official said.