Bhubaneswar: The Capital Region Urban Transport (CRUT) has auctioned its fleet of 121 city buses, which had attained their shelf life and were gathering dust at several depots for the last three years.
General Manager of CRUT, Dipti Mohapatra on Friday told a local news channel that a decision to sell off these buses was taken after the agreement between then Bhubaneswar-Puri Transport Services Limited (BPTSL), which was later rechristened as CRUT, and DTS (Dream Team Sahara) ended in 2017.
“A total of 125 buses were bought in 2010 under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission to facilitate city bus service in Bhubaneswar and Puri. An agreement was signed with the DTS to operate them for seven years, till 2017. Later, the agreement was extended for another year,” she said.
While the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) was given four buses for their ‘Toilet On Wheels’ programme and it was decided to auction the remaining 121.
“The RTO had recommended scrapping the buses after an inspection since these had crossed their shelf life. We followed the necessary procedure and auctioned them through the Central Government scrap auction portal Metal Scrap Trade Corporation Ltd,” said Mohapatra.
The base price of these buses ranged from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 2.5 lakh depending on their condition.
“In fact, we have auctioned them at a higher rate slab decided by the RTO after the inspection,” she added.
Sources said Rs 17.5 crore was spent by the then BPTS to purchase 125 buses (100 for Bhubaneswar and 25 for Puri) in 2010. These buses were kept off the road after CRUT rolled out its new buses under the ‘Mo Bus’ service on November 6, 2018.
The CRUT runs Mo Bus service in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Khurda and Puri.
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