Centre sanctioned over 1000 buses for 13 cities under JNNURM

The Centre has sanctioned 1080 buses to thirteen cities of seven states under its Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) scheme on 1 January 2014.

These states are Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Sikkim and Tripura. An official release said that these cities have also been sanctioned projects relating to ancillary infrastructure like depots and workshops for urban transport.

Under the JNNURM phase-II, the Centre had sanctioned 1021 buses to Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC), out of which 737 are for four mission cities Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and Tirupati. The Corporation got 1540 buses to the mission cities under phase-I in 2009.

The low floor buses facilitate easy boarding by women, old aged and differently-abled persons without having to take to two or three steps as in the conventional buses.

There are facilities for persons to get into the bus in a wheel chair. Hyderabad for the first time got semi-low floor midi buses. These buses have easy boarding facility than the conventional ones and they would be deployed on the interior routes of the Old city.

Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission
Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) is a massive city modernisation scheme launched by the Government of India. It envisages a total investment of over 20 billion dollar over a period of 7 years. It is named after Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India.

The scheme was officially inaugurated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in December 2005, as a programme meant to improve the quality of life and infrastructure in the cities.

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