The transport utility started thinking on these lines after the proposal to procure 500 vehicles under JNNURM using government funds being almost scrapped. In the first phase, Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad municipal corporations received funds under JNNURM and procured 650 buses in 2009.
PMPML’s chairman and managing director Abhishek Krishna said the proposal for the procurement of buses was discussed with district guardian minister Girish Bapat, who reviewed the functioning of the transport company earlier this month. “We have to get loan on long-term basis from financial institutions who offer low interest rates. We will not be able to repay the loan immediately. The guardian minister said the state government would offer help if any financial institution offers long-term loan with low interest,“ Krishna said.
The Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mandal Limited (PMPML) has not purchased a single bus in the past six years. As the fleet is getting increasingly older, its maintenance cost is going north with each passing day.
The previous UPA government at the Centre had come up with another proposal for supplying 10,000 buses to mission cities, including Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad, in 2014. PMPML had submitted a proposal for 500 buses, including five different models. The government had later sought some clarifications, which were sent to the ministry. PMPML officials claimed that the 650 JNNURM buses procured six years ago were now close to “retirement age“. PMPML had proposed to run 50 minibuses in congested areas of the city. But after the uncertainty over the second phase of JNNURM, there is little hope of getting them. PMPML has even suspended the process of recruiting drivers.
Of the 1,200 buses of PMPML, around 800 ply on roads at present. The officials claimed that the maintenance cost of the existing fleet was high because more than 30% of the buses were above the age of eight years.
Still, the officials claimed that the number of bus breakdowns in Pune was less considering the PMPL’s ageold fleet compared to other cities.
PMPML has taken 650 buses on rent from private operators. Over 1,400 buses (including 800 buses of PMPML) ply on the city roads each day. The number of buses plying this year has increased as compared to 2014, resulting in increase of monthly earnings of PMPML by nearly Rs 7 crore.
Source : TOI
