The Kerala High Court on Thursday directed the state government, to inform the court why the KSRTC was permitted to deviate buses allotted to the Kochi city under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) scheme, to destinations outside the city limits.

A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice C K Vinod Chandran issued the directive while considering a petition filed by Advocate K P Pradeep challenging the decision of the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) to roll out JNNURM low-floor buses allotted to the city to other districts.

jnnurm buses

The Court directed the state to file an affidavit detailing how much of fund was allotted by the center government to the project, the investment of the state, the number of buses procured and information about buses operating to other districts. The bench has posted the hearing of the case to June 10.

In a statement, R K Singh, Director (Urban Transport), Ministry of Urban development said that the financing for buses under JNNRUM is exclusively for city bus service. In order to ensure that the buses procured under JNNRUM are utilised exclusively for urban transport, the state should set up a city specific wholly owned SPV/umbrella body for controlling the managing the city bus service. Ministry of Urban development is closely monitoring the implementation of the project along with the state, Singh said.

The statement said the centre had provided financial assistance to Kerala as a one-time measure for the purchase of buses under the scheme. Centre sanctioned 200 buses at an estimated cost of `71 crore. The share of the central government was fifty per cente. “As per the information available with the ministry, 162 buses have been procured so far,” it said.

The center further said that the state has initiated steps for the formation of an SPV for supervising the operation of JNNRUM buses and is examining the viability. The Managing Director, KSRTC will be the ex-officio chief executive officer of the SPV. However, the Ministry has so far not received any confirmation from KSRTC or the state regarding the functioning of SPV, statement said.

The petitioner pointed out that low-floor buses should be operated within the city as mandated by the JNNURM norms. Under the scheme, the grant was allotted to the city for procuring AC and non-AC low-floor buses, exclusively for the city services. But the KSRTC violated the norms and guidelines, Pradeep submitted.

According to the petitioner, as many as 50 air-conditioned and 120 non-air-conditioned low floor buses were made available for plying in the city. Of which, 45 A/C and 118 non-A/C buses were plying to various destinations in Ernakulum district. However, of late, some of these buses were diverted to destinations outside the district like Thrissur and Kozhikode.

Source: New Indian Express

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