The Hindu Business Line : Ministry for reducing taxes on buses for public transportation

Quality travel
During the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, the Urban Development Ministry has sought encouraging investment in premium bus systems.
It has allocated Rs 38,000 crore in “modern buses” during the Five-Year Plan period.
Ministry starts exercise to standardise the buses used for public transport to improve quality of service.

Mamuni Das
Moumita Bakshi Chatterjee

New Delhi, Dec 21 Buses used for public transportation could get cheaper next year if Finance Ministry were to accept a proposal by the Urban Development Ministry seeking duty waivers from the Centre on sale of buses used for public transport.

However, the proposal comes with a rider as the Urban Development Ministry proposes to reduce its share of Central taxes provided the State Governments waive their share of taxes imposed on the buses used for intra-city public transport.

“For Volvo buses, all taxes and duties taken together account for about 30-35 per cent of total cost,” official sources told Business Line.

The idea is to make public transportation cheaper while improving the quality of fleet, explained sources. The proposal would affect intra-city transport only as the Urban Development Ministry deals with “urban transportation”.

According to data compiled by Transport Research Wing of Road Transport Ministry, the average age of Government-owned bus fleet for cities like Ahmedabad (10.2 years), Chennai (8.47 years) and Kolkata (6.38 years) is on the higher side. For buses owned by eight Municipal undertakings including Ahmedabad, Kolhapur, Mumbai, Pune and Navi Mumbai, the average age of fleet operated is about eight years for the first quarter of fiscal 2006-07.

Meanwhile, during the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, the Urban Development Ministry has sought encouraging investment in premium bus systems. It has allocated an investment of Rs 38,000 crore in “modern buses” during the Five-Year Plan period.

In fact, the Urban Development Ministry has also started an exercise to standardise the kind of buses being used for public transportation to improve the quality of public transport.

Stressing that there is an urgent need to take pro-active measures to improve public transport by running modern city bus services, the Ministry has called for use of buses that are ergonomically designed, facilitate level boarding and alighting, have comfortable seating and suspension, advanced passenger information system, vehicle information, tracking systems and are passenger friendly.

The quality of public transport should be such that it can be sold to public as a branded product and people take pride in travelling by public transport, the Ministry has stated.

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