Ahmedabad

Transport Minister Shri Vijay Rupani today after inauguration of international level bus port near Subhash Bridge in Ahmedabad said, Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation(GSRTC) will float tender for 15 bus ports across Gujarat this month and these bus ports will be functional by December 2017. Rupani said bus ports in Vadodara and Ahmedabad are now already functional while bus ports in Mahesana, Surat and another bus port in Vadodara will be opened shortly.

“This bus port opened today will have every kind of facility. Shortly we will dedicate bus stations in Mahesana, Surat and Vadodara. Approval to modernization of 15 other bus stations at district headquarters be it Bharuch, Bhavnagar, Nadiad or Palanpur has been given by Chief Minister on Public Private Partnership mode. Tenders will be out this month and works will be completed by December 2017,” Rupani said.

” We call new bus station a bus port because it offers facilities matching to airport. Suppose if some rickshaw driver drops a passenger at this bus port, the passenger would complain that instead of bus station, why he has been dropped at a mall,” Rupani said in his speech.

He said it was present Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s concept that bus stations should be like airport and they should be called bus ports rather.

Rupani said GSRTC operates 8,000 buses round the clock involving 44,000 trips across Gujarat. For transformation of ST bus, GSRTC has selected graduates as driver and conductor in recent recruitment.

“Now on our drivers and conductors will be graduate. We recruited 500 women as conductors,” he said.

“The government has given approval to induct 1,000 buses every year and each bus which is older than 8 years will be retired from service. You will not see people pushing a bus on highway road any more due to break down,” he said.

Rupani also said that as many as 2,500 express buses will have installed GPS system in upcoming month of April. Movement of buses will be tracked on digital screen and information regarding their arrival and platform number will also be displayed digitally. “We will install GPS in local buses then-after in modernization move.”

– DeshGujarat