The Business Line 30.07.2009
TN road transport undertakings may buy 3,000 buses this year
| Tenders for 1,500 LED destination display boards too. |
An airconditioned bus of the Chennai Metropolitan Transport Corporation
M. Ramesh
Chennai, July 29
Armed with funds from the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, the various State road transport undertakings in Tamil Nadu are on a buying spree.
On July 1, orders were placed for 1,500 semi-low floor buses, worth about Rs 300 crore. Ashok Leyland got orders for 1,000 buses, Tata Motors for 500.
Now, the nodal agency for the centralised purchases for the TN STUs, Institute of Road Transport (IRT) will finalise another order for 100 air-conditioned buses next week.
The Institute has put out another tender for the buying 1,500 LED destination display boards, valued at about Rs 25 crore. These are modern boards that gives the bus number, route and name of the stopping on their electronic displays.
Bids for led displays
The tender is good news for Chennai, where about 300 buses have the LED displays, on trial basis.
According to Mr P. Rajan, Additional Director (Purchase), IRT, 900 of the 1,500 units under purchase are meant for the buses of Chennai Metropolitan Transport Corporation. The other 600 are to be equally divided between Coimbatore and Madurai. The funding for the LED displays also comes from JNNURM.
Outside the JNNURM-funded purchase programme, the IRT has floated a tender calling for the supply of some 60,000 tyres worth about Rs 36 crore, which closes on August 4. Another tender for supply of lubricants worth about Rs 25 crore closes on August 8.
Mr Rajan told Business Line on Wednesday that within the next fortnight, IRT will finalise orders for the purchase of 1,400 bus chassis. This could be worth another Rs 300 crore. Thus, between JNNURM and otherwise, the TN STUs will buy at least 3,000 new buses this year.
Asked if IRT also buys spare parts for the TN fleet, Mr Rajan said that spare parts are centrally purchased by the Association of State Road Transport Undertakings, New Delhi.
IRT is mandated with the task of purchasing items such as chassis, lubricants, rubber materials including tyres and bus tickets, he said.