Jaipur: People who commute by bus in Jaipur should brace for a difficult time starting April, as 100 buses of Jaipur City Transport Services Limited (JCTSL) are scheduled to retire by March 31. This reduction will halve the current fleet, leaving only 100 buses in operation and forcing the cancellation of several routes.Although officials are making efforts to acquire as many as 318 new electric buses through Convergence Energy Services Limited (CESL), a joint venture of public sector companies under the Union ministry of power, they anticipate securing only 50-60 replacements by the deadline. JCTSL officials stated CESL in Sept conducted a prototype trial of the buses to be procured by the corporation, but it failed. Another round of the trial was conducted on Dec 15, the report of which is still awaited. “At present there is no clarity on when Jaipur would get its first set of buses through CESL. In 2023, 100 buses of JCTSL retired, cutting down 16 pairs of routes and affecting around 50,000 daily passengers. This time the effect would be more significant as the number of buses would get down to only 100 and all these buses are more than 12 years old,” stated an official from the local self govt (LSG) department.Speaking to TOI, JCTSL’s managing director Narayan Singh stated that the corporation plans to procure 150 out of 318 buses in the first phase and if everything works fine, it will take another two to two-and-a-half months to complete the manufacture of the first set of buses.
