The Union Government seems to be providing a major boost to redefine urban mobility and has selected Ludhiana among the four cities for which the city bus service will be introduced. Besides Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar, and Patiala will also be a part of the Rs 20,000-core PM-eBus Sewa scheme.
The plans were disclosed by Union Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Kaushal Kishore in reply to a question of the Rajya Sabha MP from Ludhiana, Sanjeev Arora, during the ongoing winter session of the Indian Parliament.
The Punjab AAP MP wanted an update on the status of the augmentation of the city bus service scheme and the details of Tier-II and III cities proposed to come under the same scheme in the state. The Union Minister commented that the Centre had launched the PM eBus Sewa Scheme on August 16 with a focus on transforming bus operations through the deployment of electric buses in the public-private partnership mode and the development of associated infrastructure with central assistance of Rs 20,000 crore.
The Union Minister said, “As many as 169 cities falling in the range of 3 lakh to 40 lakh population size, as per Census 2011, including four cities – Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jalandhar and Patiala – are eligible to participate in this scheme,” and also stated that the process for implementation of the scheme has already been initiated by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
A team of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has reached Ludhiana to perform the ground survey for the launch of the scheme.
