MSRTC agrees to provide land for developing Smart City bus depots

Aurangabad, Dec 4:

The Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) has decided to provide its land at Mukundwadi and Railway Station to Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) for establishing Smart City bus depots. The guardian minister Subhash Desai has informed the AMC administrator A K Pandey about the development on the phone, today. Meanwhile, the civic body is expecting to receive the no-objection-certificate from MSRTC soon.

It may be noted that the Aurangabad Smart City Development Corporation Limited (ASCDCL) had purchased 100 buses from the Smart City fund. However, it was in search of suitable open space for establishing bus depots. ASCDCL contacted MSRTC to get the old bus depots land at Railway Station and Mukundwadi. However, state transport refused to do so. Later on, the AMC requested the guardian minister to intervene the matter.

In the meantime, MSRTC submitted a proposal to the AMC demanding to waive-off the development charges (of Rs 1.5 crore) which are to be levied upon its to proposed new Bus Port and Central Bus Stand. In response to which, the AMC also tabled a proposal stating to provide land for bus depots at minimal cost against waiving of the development charges.

Several meetings held in Mumbai but were in vain. Lastly, a meeting was held in the presence of Desai (in Mumbai) in November. Later on, there was no progress in this regard due to the code of conduct for the MLC election. Today, the guardian minister contacted the AMC administrator and told him that MSRTC''s managing director has agreed to issue NoCs for the bus depots, soon. Hence, the obstruction in developing the bus depots got cleared with the intervention of the guardian minister.