Chief Minister Siddaramaiah flagged off 100 new diesel non-AC buses for the Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) on Thursday.
He said the government was adding more buses and opening more Indira Canteens to serve the city's growing working class. He pledged to continue the Congress government's five guarantee schemes, stating that they provide families with monthly benefits worth Rs 4,000 to Rs 5,000 each.
The buses are part of an 840-vehicle order that the BMTC has placed under a Rs 336-crore financial grant received from the state government to augment its depleting fleet, mitigate air pollution and introduce more services across the city.
The BMTC has been under pressure to expand its fleet due to the Shakti scheme, which offers free bus travel to women. While the BMTC's daily ridership has surged from 27.4 lakh to 40 lakh since the scheme’s introduction, the fleet has decreased from 6,888 to 6,158. On average, the BMTC operates 5,722 buses and 59,278 trips daily.
In October 2022, the BMTC floated tenders to buy 840 diesel buses complying with Bharat Stage 6 emission norms. Tata Motors won the contract and delivered 20 buses. However, a petition in the Karnataka High Court argued that the BMTC was buying buses with a floor height of 1,000 mm, making them unfriendly to people with disabilities.
In March 2023, the court allowed the BMTC to go ahead with the bus purchase after the transporter stated that the vehicles would provide full accessibility to passengers using wheelchairs.
The BMTC later scrapped the contract after the Tata Motors buses developed technical snags. In February 2024, the BMTC floated tenders to buy 820 buses and awarded the contract to Ashok Leyland.
Ashok Leyland delivered a prototype bus, which underwent a month-long trial and passed all technical tests. The company has now supplied the first batch of 100 buses and is expected to deliver all the 820 buses by March, a senior BMTC official in the know said.
GT Prabhakara Reddy, Chief Traffic Manager (Operations), BMTC, told DH that the new buses would be assigned to all non-AC, non-electric depots and would serve Majestic, KR Market, Shivajinagar, the Outer Ring Road and other routes.
Bus specifications
Length: 11 metres
Floor height: 1,000 mm
Seating capacity: 41+1
Features: Three surveillance cameras, LED display boards, voice announcement system, panic buttons, Fire Detection and Alarm System, Vehicle Location Tracking System, stop button, air suspension and On-Board Diagnostics-2.
Compared to BS-4, the buses have 90% less emission of nitrogen oxide, 70% less of hydrocarbons and 50% less of Particulate Matter.