BMTC intelligent transportsystem delayed yet again

Lack of information about the arrival and departure of the buses is one of the major reasons that people have switched over to own vehicles, auto rickshaws or taxis

Work on the BMTC’s intelligent transport system (ITS) project to make the BMTC bus services predictable and help passengers plan their journey has been delayed yet again. This has prompted authorities to warn the contractor that the contract will be revoked.

Lack of information about the arrival and departure of the buses is one of the major reasons that people have switched over to owning vehicles, auto rickshaws or taxis. As a result, the BMTC has been losing thousands of passengers every day.

As part of the ITS project funded by the Nirbhaya scheme, the BMTC had awarded a Rs 37.5-crore work to Manipal Technologies to install global tracking devices (GPS), alarm (SOS) buttons and cameras in 2020. The BMTC had set August 2021 as the deadline for the completion of the works. However, the company has failed to deliver.

“The contractor has been citing a shortage of semiconductor chips for the delay. We extended the deadline three times but to no avail. As a final chance, the company has been warned that the contract will be cancelled if they do not hand over the project by November,” a BMTC official said.

The official said the company has installed GPS, camera and SOS in 1,000 buses and about 4,000 buses were remaining. “The BMTC understands the problems faced by a company. A huge part of the fund comes from the Union government which has strict deadlines. As a government agency, we have to follow the rules and decide accordingly,” the official added.

Another official said a brand new BMTC app to track the buses has already been created. “We have run some tests and the app seems to be good. However, we need all the 5,000 buses to be equipped with the tracking devices to test it in real time,” the official added.