A meeting focused on how to make successful operation of city buses keeping in view the public interest was convened by District In-charge and Transport Minister Mohammad Akbar along with the officials of the Traffic Department, union transport members and other concerned officials in the Collectorate auditorium.

During the meeting, it has been decided to run 70 city buses in urban areas. The tender was floated by the department and this tender has been received by Reliance Tour and Travels for various routes in urban areas.

The Transport Minister was of the opinion that without compromising with the interests of the common citizens, better co-ordination should be established with the private bus operators. For this, he got their opinion from the private big and mini bus operators and with the consent of all the transporters present and the concerned officers, amended the fixed route and the perimeter limit of the area.

A total of 21 routes were earmarked for city bus operation. In which, after mutual agreement, the route chart was remapped to 16 and in some routes the boundary of the area’s perimeter was also changed.

Addressing the gathering, Transport Minister Mohammad Akbar said that efficient public transport is required for better urban planning, which we want to accomplish by reintroducing city buses. Public transport is vital to the urban economy and labour market.The State Government wants to promote public transport through city buses. So that the negative effects of fuel consumption and air pollution can be minimised. With this, the citizens of the district will also

get a better option to travel from one place to another in major destinations with reasonable fares. Collector Pushpendra Kumar Meena, SP Dr. Abhishek Pallav, Additional Collector Arvind Ekka, Prakash Kumar Survey Commissioner Municipal Corporation Durg, Lokesh Chandrakar Commissioner Municipal Corporation Bhilai, Ashish Devangan Commissioner Municipal Corporation Risali, Kirtiman Singh Rathore Commissioner Municipal Corporation Bhilai-Charoda, Anubhav Sharma Regional Transport Officer and other officers were present.