CHENNAI: Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Wednesday allocated Rs 435 crore to procure 3,000 new buses for the State-owned transport corporation in lieu of buses have been in use for six years now or have been operated for over a distance of seven lakh kilometres, a government release said on Wednesday. In the first phase, 520 new buses will be bought at a cost of `75.36 crore.Since the financial position of the State transport corporations do not provide much room for the purchase of a large number of new buses to cope with ever-increasing demand, steps would now be taken to use working parts of old buses to repair other buses. In the first phase, 1,432 buses have been chosen for repair work to be undertaken at cost of Rs 97.58 crore, the official release said.At present, there are eight transport corporations functioning under the State Transport Department, operating a total of 21,169 buses, making up one of the largest transport services in the entire country. As many as 2.10 crore passengers use these buses across the State. In Chennai alone, 55 lakh passengers use the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) services. These corporations operate bus services to States such as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Puducherry.Due to the widespread migration of people, both rural and urban areas are growing day by day and the transport services are the only link available for people from these areas to the other parts of the State, the release said. It added that through to these steps, the people of Tamil Nadu would get better transport facilities.
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