AGARTALA, Oct 5 (TIWN): Transport Minister Manik Dey on Monday inspected the newly arrived state’s own first Volvo bus at TRTC complex to check the status of the bus.

After waiting for several months, the state government has finally catered its own Volvo bus to the land locked Tripura to provide its own volvo bus service from Agartala to Kolkata via Dhaka.

The state is all set to start its own first volvo bus service to Kolkata from Agartala via Dhaka expectedly from Oct 15, said Minister Manik Dey.

He further said that the Bus itself cost Rs 88 lakh 23 thousand and after all other chargers including insurance and other things the range stands at Rs91, 21,221 and there are no more plans to cater any more Volvo bus in the state.

With the aim to start the state own bus service to Kolkata from Agartala via Dhaka, a Volvo bus has arrived in the state on Saturday late night and is kept at TRTC garage area.

Speaking to media, Transport Minister Manik Dey said that the Volvo bus is catered in the state to provide luxurious service to the people of the state. This international standard Volvo buses is bought with an aim for comfort of Tripura passengers.

Stressing on the bus fare from Agartala, Minister also said that the fare will be decided after meeting with the representatives of West Bengal and Bangladesh.

Despite all odds and with an aim to meet the demand of the land-locked Tripura and to contain the rise in airfares the Tripura Left front government has at last bought luxury bus for the Agartala-Kolkata route via Bangladesh capital Dhaka. Tripura is all set to kick off the commercial service between Agartala and Kolkata, while the West Bengal Government has already started its commercial services successfully.

The introduction of Volvo buses however has of course triggered a question now among the drivers who would be entrusted to drive the Volvo bus; also questions about maintenance as no Volvo maintenance exist in Tripura.

However, the bus which has arrived in the state is not yet ready to ply as it need to be examined and a team of experts engineers from Bangalore will shortly arrive here in the state to check the  status of the bus.

The existing route between Kolkata and Agartala by road has been a complex one with an estimated distance of 1,650 kilometres. The journey through the narrow 'chicken neck' territory via Guwahati and Shillong takes around two days.

But the new route via Dhaka, Rupganj, Narsingdi, Brahmanberia and Akhaura would bring down the distance to 470 kilometres.

The Kolkata-Dhaka bus service was introduced in 1999. Since then, there has been a demand for connectivity with Tripura. The successful run of Kolkata-Dhaka service brightened the scope for another service in the northeastern sector. While Agartala-Dhaka service was introduced in 2003, requests started pouring in for a direct link.