AGARTALA, June 26 (TIWN): At last after several allegations raised against the state urban development department over the irregularities of sanctioned funds under the scrapped centrally sponsored Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), the State Govt managed to get at least 30 city buses amongst the 100 as ordered by the Tripura High Court earlier. Talking to TIWN on Thursday, a high-level official of the urban department informed that recently 30 to 35 buses have reached here in Agartala under the NJJURM scheme and the rest would be arriving here soon. The official said that at present the officials of the department alongwith the Transport Secretary are finalizing the routes and later the tenders would be floated. With an aim to facilitate the city passengers the buses were procured here, said the official. Under the ambit of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL), the Tripura High Court directed the Government to purchase 100 more buses. The State Transport Department assured the Court about running those buses along the city and around starting from June-July. However, those assurances are yet to be put into effect by lackluster administration.

During the hearing of the case the state government through its affidavit earlier mentioned that the state urban development department would procure the 100 city buses by June 30 this year.

The High Court also ordered to constitute a committee to fix up the routes of the buses where those would be plied and to inform the Court about the steps taken by the Government in response to the services. The state govt. had said that by the last of this month the buses would be made operational in and around the city areas.

A transport dept official said that earlier 70 buses were procured by the state government here under the central scheme and now another 100 would be procured taking the total figure to rest at 170. Amongst the 100, recently 30 to 35 buses had arrived here.

It is mentionable here that Tripura had sanctioned a project of Rs. 35 crores to operationalize 100 additional buses for the city bus project functional in Agartala city and its suburbs. The Ministry of Urban Development had sanctioned 1080 buses to 13 cities across seven states of the country under its Jawaharlal Nehru urban renewal Mission (JNNURM) project on January 01, 2014.

The state Left front government managed to purchase only 70 buses during the year 2010, 2012 and 2014 amongst the 100 buses under the scheme. However, as a result the city passengers are deprived at a large.

Despite allocation of huge amount of funds by the Centre in 2009 for the state under the scheme, the state government managed to buy only 38 buses during the year 2010 after several persuasions. Later after several allegation were raised over the fund irregularities the department managed to procure another 15 buses during the year 2012 and the rest 17 buses were purchased by the department during the year 2014 spending Rs. 3 crore and 85 lakhs.

The JNNURM was launched in 2005 for a 7-year period with the aim of modernizing our cities and improving the infrastructure and public services has been scrapped on the month of April this year by the BJP led NDA govt. at the center. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday launched the cabinet approved Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) replacing the JNNURM scheme.

The launch of AMRUT is an opportunity for the government to undo mistakes of the previous government and build on past successes. AMRUT must be able to strike a balance between assisting towns and cities that were not aided by JNNURM and expanding services and infrastructure in cities already assisted.