Shimla: Under pressure checking overloading and overcrowding buses, the state government has decided to publish 500 new routes in next ten days and allocated at the earliest. Transport Minister Govind Singh Thakur revealed that 124 new bus routes have already published and would be allocated within a week.
Transport Minister Govind Singh Thakur said that the state government is committed to check the overloading for which the transport department is taking effective steps.
Thakur said that besides expansion of the state road transport fleet, the HRTC would start tempo taxi services on small link routes for which a plan is being formulated by the department. Under the scheme, the owners of the local vehicles would sign up an agreement with the HRTC to providing transport facility to the commuters. This would not only help in getting rid of overloading but would also generate employment opportunities to the local people.
The Minister said that after the tragic bus accident in Banjar on 22 June, the state government is taking more effective efforts for ensuring road safety by checking over loading, rash and drunken driving and identifying black spots, which are the main reasons for the road accidents.
The Transport Minister said that a special road safety campaign would be started in the third week of July under which the meetings of the state and district level road safety authorities would be organised to take up realistic steps for checking the road accidents.
