A trial run of buses to be plied on the Simhachalam and Pendurti corridors of Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) will be taken up soon.
At a meeting of Visakhapatnam Urban Transport Company (VUTCO), its Chairman and district Collector V. Seshadri said the trial run would help identify problems on the two corridors.
Addressing the first board meeting of VUTCO here on Friday, he said besides on the completed parts of BRTS, the JNNURM buses should also be plied on other viable routes.
VUTCO is a special purpose vehicle headed by the district Collector while the RTC Executive Director is the Managing Director and the GVMC Commissioner the CEO.
VUDA Vice-Chairman, Police Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner (Transport) and APSRTC Regional Manager are its directors.
While APSRTC will have an equity of 51 per cent GVMC and VUDA will have 25 per cent and 24 per cent respectively and the initial investment is pegged at Rs.2.5 crore. Though initial expenditure is estimated at Rs.1 crore, in view of lack of funds Rs.15 lakh should be made available, Mr. Seshadri said. Also 25,000 equity shares of Rs.10 each will be floated, he said.
Municipal Commissioner M.V. Satyanarayana said for 1,140 properties Rs.15.9 crore had been paid as compensation. Another 160 properties had to be removed. Of the 30 places of worship to be shifted, 18 had been shifted.
Police Commissioner J. Purnachandra Rao hoped bringing the two corridors into use would help identify the problems.
He, however, suggested that road vulnerable to accidents should not be opened for operations and lighting should be arranged.
VUDA Vice-Chairman Kona Sasidhar suggested that 5 to 10 per cent of the ticket earnings should be earmarked to VUTCO.
The board favoured conducting a competition for designing the logo for VUTCO.
