The government of Goa on is planning to launch a new subsidy structure for replacement of old buses and issued an order to constitute five-member teams headed by the Deputy Collector of the region with the assistant director of Transport as member secretary to finalise signages and bus stops.
The new scheme will help the private bus owners to replace the old buses and will also give the commuters better comfort. This is also a good opportunity for the commercial vehicle companies to increase the sales and the festive season would be ideal for the same.
The state has around 2000 public transport buses and out of that these, 305 buses are 15 years old or above. These buses have to be replaced within the next three years.
“Now government has taken an in-principle decision that in public transport there will be no buses that are over 15 years,” the transport director said, adding that the proposed policy would have a clause that would make it compulsory for the bus owners who avail of the subsidy to replace the big buses and they will have to buy buses having a minimum of 37 seats.
Now the subsidy, according to the notification and as per the budget promise will be for buses that are ten years old and above in contrast to the earlier one which was for buses that were 15 years old and above.
For buses over 10 years and less than 15 years, the subsidy will be Rs 5 lakh and for mini buses it will be Rs 3.5 lakh. For buses from 15-20 years (bigger ones), the subsidy is of Rs 3.5 lakh from the earlier Rs 2.25 lakh, while for mini buses it is Rs 2.75 lakh from the earlier Rs 2 lakh.
Source: Navhind Times
