SMALL cities of Himachal to get 1,000 buses under JNNURM

Dharamsala, July 27, 2013: Himachal will soon get 1,000 buses to strengthen its urban areas communication system under  Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission ( JNNURM), and these will not be mangled with HRTC,” said Himachal Pradesh Urban Development Minister Sudhir Sharma here on Saturday.
The minister said that once the buses handed over to Himachal it will cater the local communication needs of the municipal areas. He said that few years back also center provided few buses to Shimla, but these were given to HRTC.
Sources said that Center Government is spending more than Rs 4,900 crore to provide 14,695 buses for the various mission cities under JNNURM.
Sources in the Urban Development Ministry said that most of the buses to be supplied to cities and hill states would be of mid-size category so that they can move and maneuver easily. Moreover, learning from bad experiences during the first phase implementation of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), where buses funded by the Centre were not utilised properly, the UD Ministry would fix the recurring problems from the beginning.
The Centre, states and the municipal bodies share the funding. The size of the central allocation depends on the population density of the recipient “Mission” cities. JNNURM bus project is an initiative by the Central Government to promote public transport and to reduce traffic congestion and pollution.