At Re 1 for 17 km, cheapest bus on road soon

Kolkata: Now travel in a bus paying just Re 1. Thanks to the 55-seater bus powered by biogas, sourced from cowdung that was launched in Kolkata on Friday. The bus, which operators claim is the first of its kind in India, will be travelling on five routes.

The first bus was flagged off on Friday from Ultadanga in the north and will travel up to Garia in the south, a distance of 17.5 km via the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass. A city-based company, Phoenix India Research and Development Group (PIRDG), which has produced the biogas from cow dung, has tied up with heavy vehicle major Ashok Leyland to manufacture the 55-seater buses.

Presently, these buses will run in 5 routes from Ultadanga — to Garia, to Behala, to Basirhat, to Barasat and to New Town.

There will be a total of 4 trips on each of the routes — two in the morning and two in late afternoon. “We have plans to roll out as many as 15 buses by December this year with the same fare structure,” Jyoti Prakash Das, chairman and managing director of PIRDG,  the company that launched the service said. The lowest fare in a Kolkata bus is Rs 6, which goes up to Rs 12 for 17 km, and that of a Delhi bus that runs on CNG is Rs 5 for 4 km and upwards.

The biogas that will be used to run the bus is produced at a plant in Bengal’s Birbhum district and will be transported to Kolkata in tankers.

“We are open to advertisements in our buses. Anybody willing to advertise on our bus can do it at Rs 2 lakh,” Mr Das added.