An AC bus launched in Puri on Sunday. Picture by Sarat Patra

Bhubaneswar, June 22: Air-conditioned city buses rolled out in Puri today under the second phase expansion of the service, even when the buses launched in Bhubaneswar in the first phase are struggling to find passengers.

The first batch of AC buses was rolled out in Bhubaneswar during the peak of summer.

Despite that, poor passenger occupancy has raised eyebrows of the bus service operators. Officials of Dream Team Shahara (DTS), the private operator of the bus service, said that summer vacation in colleges kept the students away.

Besides, the steep fare of the AC buses was considered to be another reason for poor passenger turnout.

Four buses have been plying between Airport and Nandankanan touching KIIT University and Acharya Vihar Square in Bhubaneswar every day. Besides, it also touches Master Canteen Square, where the main railway station of the city is located.

“Any two places on this route are within 15 kilometres and we have to pay around Rs 14 for this distance in non-AC city buses. But in AC buses, we have to pay around Rs 40 for this distance, which is a bit high. One can take these buses once or twice, but not on a daily basis,” said Sulochana Satpathy, a private company employee, who commutes between her residence at Patia and her office at Kharavela Nagar every day.

Sudhansu Jena, chief executive officer of DTS, said that several engineering colleges were on this route and many tourists visited Nandankanan everyday, which prompted them to pick this route for plying these AC buses.

“Summer vacation in colleges has hit the bus service. However, only one-and-a-half months have passed ever since the service was launched on May 2. We hope people will soon use this comfortable mode of transport,” said Jena.

He added that these buses were packed during peak summer. But in other times, the occupancy was very poor.

However, people travelling inside the city are not opting for this service.

At present, these buses are picking passengers from 15 stoppages on this route unlike the 32 bus stands where the regular city buses stop.

Another official in the DTS said that the third phase of this AC city buses between Cuttack and Bhubaneswar would also be launched shortly.