The Department of Transport Management (DoTM) has already held consultation with transport entrepreneurs and made formal request to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) for necessary security arrangements to operate night time bus service. [break]
“We are making final preparations to launch the service from Mid-January 2011,” Anil Gurung, Acting Director General of DoTM told Republica.
Gurung said the service would be started by bringing at least 10 buses into operation along busy routes. To lure the transport entrepreneurs, the government would allow operators to fix a higher transport fares.
“Keeping in view the nature of service, we will give them the permission to fix higher fares. However, nighttime commuters would benefit a lot as they would not have to pay exorbitant taxi fares,” said Gurung.
According to Gurung, the night time public transport services would run from 8 PM to 11 PM every day along busy routes.
Though the number of buses to be brought into operation for night services hasn´t been fixed, Gurung said the DoTM is planning to bring at least 10 buses in operation in the first phase. Major routes including Ratnapark- Maharajgunj, Ratnapark-Jawalakhel, Ratapark-Koteswar and Ratnapark-Kalanki, will be selected during the first phase.
Though transport entrepreneurs are ready to operate the service, they have expressed security concerns.
“We are ready to operate buses at night if the government guarantees security,” said Dol Nath Khanal, general secretary of the Nepal Transport Entrepreneurs´ National Federation.
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