BMTC asks schools to purchase its buses

Seeking to capitalise on the piquant situation schools are facing with private vehicles remaining off roads, Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC), that discards hundreds of buses annually to replenish them with better technology vehicles, has asked schools to pick up some of these buses.

According to BMTC Managing Director Anjum Parvez, while the corporation sold two buses to a Bijapur institution, it has found no buyer yet in Bangalore. Stating that the corporation is willing to sell the vehicles at modest prices, Parvez said, “in our kind of (commercial) business, we cannot operate a bus beyond five to six years, but schools and other institutions with limited usage can utilise them for 15-16 years. Thus, they can invest in our vehicles which will be cheaper for them than new buses. The corporation will be liberal when educational institutions approach it for such buses.

“The transport department has said they can operate vehicles up to 15 years,” he added. “No school has approached the BMTC for buses to ferry children from school if it hires the entire bus on contract. The corporation has increased the number of buses being operated daily by using the spare vehicles,” he said.

Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy said that about 100 more buses have been pressed into service. “As far as the agreement between schools and transport department is concerned, for exclusive BMTC buses, we are yet to receive any such requests from individual schools. We are ready to provide them buses at a fee prescribed by the department,” he said.