The New Indian Express 23.11.2010
All low-floor AC buses to ply by year-end
He was speaking on the sidelines of the meeting to elect the national executive of Janatha Dal (Secular) held in Kochi on Monday.
Thettayil said all these buses would be on the roads after rectifying minor manufacturing errors and completing procedures for issuing permits.
The lowfloor buses now plying under the limits of Greater Cochin Development Authority (GCDA) will be extended to the suburbs soon, the Minister said.
There will be 150 lowfloor A/C buses in Kochi and 150 in Thirvananthapuram.
"The empowered committee headed by secretaries of Local Self Government and Transport departments have approved the recommendation for extending the services to suburbs," the Minister said.
Given the delay in decision making by the Union Government, the buses rolled out as part of JNNURM scheme will be run by KSRTC, he said. To a query on whether there is any difference of opinion with the Finance Department over bearing the financial burden of pensions, he said the KSRTC and the state government had been, and are, jointly bearing the burden. It is the finance department that wrote off the dues by the KSRTC coming to more than Rs 1,000 crore and gave a financial assistance of Rs 468 crore. And so there is no difference of opinion with the finance department.
