Vice President of India Venkaiah Naidu will visit Hubballi on February 2 to formally inaugurate the Hubballi-Dharwad Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS), which is already ferrying close to one lakh passengers between the twin cities in its trial run.
Addressing presspersons here along with the former Minister Basavaraj Horatti, Chief Minister’s Legal Advisor Mohan Limbikai, MLA Prasad Abbayya and others, Minister for Large and Medium Industries Jagadish Shettar said that the Vice-President had given a time slot of one hour between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. on February 2 and accordingly, the programme would be organised.
Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa, Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Pralhad Joshi, Deputy Chief Minister and Transport Minister Laxman Savadi and others would participate in the inaugural function. The HD-BRTS has already won the national award for being the best among all the BRTS projects in the country, he said.
Incidentally, the ₹ 970.87-crore World Bank-funded project was sanctioned during Mr. Jagadish Shettar’s tenure as Chief Minister in 2012.
While the World Bank released 33 % of the project cost, i.e., ₹ 324.32 crore, the remaining was funded by the State government through budgetary allocation. Amid various complaints and a few remedial measures, HD-BRTS has been on trial run for the last one year.
Mr. Shettar said that apart from the 100 air-conditioned Chigari buses that were running on BRTS, an additional 55 electric buses have been purchased by HD-BRTS company at a cost of ₹ 44 crore. The manufacturing company would be delivering the vehicles shortly.
Replying to queries, the Minister admitted that there were still several issues pertaining to HD-BRTS and steps were being taken to address them. He clarified that the complaints regarding the flyover at Navalur were being addressed and an additional work worth ₹ 6.5 crore had been sanctioned in response to the plea by the residents of the locality. This apart, another work worth ₹ 1.30 crore to prevent water-logging near the Dharwad toll naka would be taken up shortly, he said.
Mr. Shettar said that a dedicated police station for the BRTS corridor had been proposed and he would pursue it at the government level. A dedicated police station would help address traffic-related issues pertaining to the bus corridor, he said.
NWKRTC chairman V.S. Patil, MLA C.M. Nimbannavar and BRTS Managing Director Rajendra Cholan were present.
