Public transport will be available soon on the 42-km long Outer Ring Road (ORR) as the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) will be launching its intra-city operations on ORR stretches to facilitate the travel of people in numerous residential hubs that have come up along the six-lane carriageway.
Bus services on the ORR were long-awaited and the Mysuru urban division of KSRTC was finalising the schedule of operations. Each bus plying on ORR will have a ‘unique’ identity and ‘500’ series route numbers for easy identification.
New layouts
Buses will largely travel on the ORR, rather than on interior roads, to connect to localities closer to the carriageway. Many new layouts have come up beyond the ORR that connects to the key roadways.
All four Mysuru depots will ply buses on the ORR routes. Each depot is expected to set aside two buses in the beginning for launching the operations. Divisional Mechanical Engineer Veeresh H.P., who is also in-charge Divisional Controller (Mysuru urban), told The Hindu that the buses will run only on the ORR barring one schedule where buses originate from Kuvempunagar depot.
“A lot of residential hubs and schools have come up along and beyond the ORR. At present, the ORR was not connected to our services. Hoping that these operations will be useful to commuters, including those in the construction sector, we are gearing up to launch the services,” he said.
475 buses
The Mysuru division has a fleet of 475 buses, including 85 newly-commissioned camera-enabled hi-tech ones under the second phase of Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).
Mysuru will also be getting 50 electric buses from the Centre for the purpose of strengthening the intra-city services besides making it eco-friendly.
As many as 6,600 trips were operated daily with about 2.5 lakh to 3 lakh commuters travelling daily. Mysuru is the only city which has over 450-plus buses for intra-city operations among the 7 to 8 lakh-plus cities in the State.
Lack of crew
The launch was planned early this year but was put off owing to scarcity of crew members. KSRTC officials said they are certain to launch the services from June this time.
