Finally, the city loses Green Buses
| Date :19-Jun-2019 |
Staff Reporter:
If one was wondering why new Green Buses run on ethanol were not visible on city roads, here is the answer from Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC): The bus operator company Scania has taken all these buses out of the city to Bengaluru! In effect, the Orange City has lost Green Buses that were launched with much fanfare. Shivaji Jagtap, Transport Manager of NMC, told this to reporters on Tuesday in reply to a question.
The shocking part, according to him, is that Scania did not even inform NMC about taking the buses to Bengaluru. When the reporters fielded more questions, Jagtap explained that Scania had roped in partners and was running Green Buses in the city. Initially, only one bus was operating for months to and fro airport. Later on, Scania was to make available 55 Green Buses in the city. However, Jagtap said, Scania and its partners ran only 25 Green Buses. Besides, it allegedly gave ‘misleading information’ about partners to NMC.
“Now, it has taken all its Green Buses to Bengaluru without even informing us. We have been communicating with the company in this regard, but now we are contemplating some harsh steps against it on the basis of its unilateral withdrawal and violation of service-level agreement,” he told reporters. At present, added the Transport Manager of NMC, Scania had gone to court in two cases and both the matters were sub-judice. One matter pertains to NMC’s proposal for forfeiture of bank guarantee of Rs 7.50 crore. Scania is opposed to this step of NMC.
Another matter relates to other issues including pending bills, land allotment, service-level agreement etc, said Jagtap. Asked if the ambitious project of ‘eco-friendly’ Green Bus project had failed in Nagpur, Jagtap said that it was because of ‘managerial failure on part of Scania’. “But, we will not say that the project has been abandoned. For, we are still trying to resolve the matter. We are optimistic that Green Buses will be back,” he said.