City buses in Berhampur. Picture by Gopal Krishna Reddy

Berhampur, May 25: A fleet of another 19 city buses will roll out in Berhampur and its adjoining towns by next month.

So far, 15 buses purchased by the state government have been handed over to the Odisha State Road Transport Corporation (OSRTC) to run the service.

Out of them 12 are plying at present (three in Berhampur and three each on Berhampur-Chhatrapur, Berhampur-Gopalpur and Berhampur-Hinjili route.)

“Another 19 buses would ply by June next and the total number of buses would be 31,” said Manoj Kumar Chhabra, OSRTC managing director.

“OSRTC has already appointed 19 drivers and nine conductors for the city bus service for the 12 buses. Appointment of drivers and conductors for all the 31 buses would be completed by June 4 and necessary arrangements have been made to run all the buses by June deadline,” he said. “A detailed discussion about plying of all the 31 city buses would be held on May 27. We would also discuss the issue on lack of space for bus parking. There is a proposal to construct new parking lots for the city buses inside the OSRTC office complex, which is in dilapidated condition,” said OSRTC divisional works engineer Dilip Kumar Upadhyaya.

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik had flagged off six buses on February 26 through video conferencing from Bhubaneswar on February 26.

At present, each city bus driver has been asked to run at least 50 trips everyday. Income out of ticket sales each day is Rs 37,000 to Rs 38,000.

Divisional transport manager, Amiya Kumar Mishra, said: “The corporation had incurred a loss of about Rs 3 lakh during the first month (expenditure Rs 9.20 lakh and income Rs 6.29 lakh). But in April the income was Rs 10.27 lakh as against an expenditure of Rs 10.16 lakh.”