Citizens’ committee to help decide new routes for public bus service in Gurugram

To formulate new routes of the Gurugram city bus service, a committee of citizens will be formed soon. This decision was taken at the third executive committee meeting of the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA), which was chaired by the chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Wednesday.

However, the authority is still to share details of when and how the citizens’ committee will be formed.

“The local residents know the city well and the routes that need a bus service. This is why they should decide the routes for the upcoming buses,” the CM said in the meeting.

Khattar added that two of the current routes were tweaked and altered based on the residents’ inputs. “There has been an increase in ridership after the routes were changed,” he said, citing this as a reason for using citizen’s inputs.

The GMDA currently has 48 buses that ply on three routes. According to the GMDA, by June this year, another 200 buses will be acquired from three different automobile manufacturers.

Khattar further said the city bus service needs to be extended till Faridabad, and also mentioned plans to start a separate bus service for women.

According to GMDA chief executive officer V Umashankar the ridership of the bus service has risen to a total of 4.5 lakh. Daily ridership figures, however, are only about 20,000 people.

“If citizens tell us what they want, we implement their feedback, then these daily ridership figures will shoot up,” GMCBL general manager Arun Sharma said.

Umashankar also added that two new routes are expected to be added soon, but did not specify when these would be rolled out.

“Around 25 buses will be added to the fleet and the buses will run from Sector 106 to Dwarka Expressway, and from Huda City Center to Ambience Mall to Gururgram Bus Station (Via Huda City Centre),” Umashankar said.