UPSRTC Board Meet: 100 electric buses for Lucknow, maternity privileges for women employees

The U.P. state road transport corporation (UPSRTC) at its 244th board review meeting on Tuesday cleared maternity privileges for employees and introducing 100 electric buses to its existing fleet in the state capital.

In the meeting, chaired by principal secretary, transport, L Venkateshwar Lu, 11 matters were finalised including interdepartmental switch for pregnant women operators.

These operators will now be assigned clerical work during their pregnancy and could avail this facility twice in their career, officials said.

The ‘paise per kilometer rate’ for maintenance of buses at the depot level has been raised from 5 paise (allocated in 1996) to 7 paise per km now. “It was also decided that 100 electronic buses will be introduced to the UPSRTC fleet for specific routes. These buses will have to cover at least 250 km per day and to aid their movement, 10 electric vehicle charging stations will be set up at separate locations in the city via the public private partnership (PPP mode) as provided by the UP Electric Vehicle Manufacturing and Mobility Policy of 2022,” officials said.

Construction work for two bus depots, one at Izzatnagar, Bareilly, and the other at Bewar, Mainpuri was also approved at the review meeting attended by transport, finance, planning and other departments. Certain bus stations have also been identified to be further developed into world class bus ports, under the PPP mode.

The recruitment of driver and operator posts has also been opened for contract-based and outsourced hiring through third parties.