In 2019, when BEST decided to introduce Minibuses in Mumbai, there was a lot of uproar on social media about using these small buses for public transport. The outcry got louder and louder when these tiny-tots were pressed into service on major long-distance routes in 2020 in lieu of double-decker buses that were getting scrapped.
However, some 1,351km south of Mumbai, another city has experimented with minibuses and has been more successful.
Over the weekend, I made a trip to India’s favourite tourist city in the South – Pondicherry. While the journey to Pondy is a different story, it will get an article soon. While walking along the streets, I saw what looks like a minibus that was squashed. At first, I wondered, was it a minibus? Or was it so small that one could call it a micro-bus?
However, I did manage to count the seats while the bus was waiting at a signal and it could seat 20 people. It isn’t all that small.
What surprised me was that the bus carried the JnNURM logo (the logo itself is a jurm) but was in a relatively good condition. Odd, given that most of the Puducherry Road Transport Corporation’s (PRTC’s) JnNURM buses were dilapidated and like their counterpart up north (I’m talking about you, MTC), JnNURM-funded Volvos have left their fleet entirely. The PRTC used to operate Volvo B7RLE buses from Chennai to Pondy and prior to that, they even operated Volvo B7R buses.
I did some digging online and came across a 2016 article from The Hindu. These buses were procured somewhere in early 2015 when the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM) was folded up and superseded by the Atal Mission for Urban Rejuvenation and Transformation (AMRUT). Fifteen buses were inducted into the PRTC fleet with 10 of them serving the city (and enclave) of Puducherry and the remaining five in Karaikal, around 130km further south. Services operated from 5am to 13.30pm and fares were fixed at ₹5.
For many a resident of the union territory, these buses have been a blessing. Auto-rickshaws in Pondy, just like Chennai are notorious for overcharging. In many cases, they can charge as much as ₹150 for distances no longer than a kilometre. Thus, a bus ticket a fraction of that cost will succeed. Many areas of the city feature narrow roads that can’t handle a regular bus. This deprived these areas of proper public transport, forcing people to walk or shell out outrageous amounts for other services. An added bonus, was that it helped a lot of women reach the city-centre for their work.
While the PRTC had a lot of plans to upgrade their network in 2014 including implementing an Intelligent Transit System (ITS), GPS tracking, electronic ticketing, upgrading their Volvo fleet and more, not much happened, probably due to the lacklusture government led by V. Narayanasamy of the Indian National Congress. We hope that N. Rangaswamy’s government works on improving public transport in the union territory soon.
The PRTC has its origins in the Puducherry Tourism and Transport Development Corportation (PTTDC) that was formed in 1992. In 2005, it was bifurcated, giving birth to the current entity. Once with a fleet strength of 141 buses, it currently operates only 65 buses across the four enclaves. It operates local services in all of them, while providing a few long distance routes connecting Puducherry with Karaikal and Mahe, along with other cities such as Chennai, Bangalore, Coimbatore and Tirupati. The sole bus connecting Puducherry to Yanam was discontinued due to low earnings. The corporation faces stiff challenges from private players as well as the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC).
Featured Image: PRTC Minibus at Rajiv Gandhi Bus Station (Srikanth Ramakrishnan/BESTpedia)
Higher resolution versions of both images used in this article are available on the Wikimedia Commons and can be attributed to Srikanth Ramakrishnan/BESTpedia.
