Dharamshala: “The government of Himachal has lifted a ban on the registration of Three Wheelers Rickshaw imposed on certain areas with immediate effect so that the unemployed youth could be benefited,” transport minister G S Bali let the media know here on Wednessday. However, he said that the vehicle must be an environment friendly one.
Giving details about his 5 years term in office, Bali said that when he took the office as transport minister in 2013, there were only 1633 buses with state tranporter HRTC in the state, and most of them were in the precarious condition. “Besides we needed Rs 450 crore for repairs of the fleet and another Rs 351 crore to clear the liabilities, he said.
The minister said, “Now as the present government has almost completed its 5 years tenure the total number of HRTC buses available are 3200. The corporation has purchased 2000 new buses during last five years, including 150 ( Volvo / Scania } buses.”
The government is also providing 25% concession to female travellers in HRTC buses and free travel to school children from their homes to schools and back. He added that HRTC experimented with fully luxurious tempo travellers on popular interstate routes – which proved to be a major success for fast travelling for small groups.
He said,” We are starting a new bus service in each assembly segment of Himachal, which will keep moving about in the constituency throughout the day.”
Arvind Sharma is an award winning bi-lingual journalist with more than 20 years of experience.
He has worked with Divya Himachal, Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhasker, Vir Partap, Ajit and PTI.
In 2010, he was conferred the Himachal Kesri journalism award. He reports on the Tibetan Government in Exile, politics, sports, tourism and other topics. He lives in Dharamshala.
