Kochi: The initial stage of talks held with German bank kfw to fund the '700 crore Low Carbon project of the Kerala Urban Road Transport Corporation (KURTC) is over even as the Corporation plans to introduce CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) buses in Calicut and Thiruvananthapuram besides Kochi under the programme.
“The first round of talks mediated by the Centre with the German bank was successful. Earlier a team from the bank had visited Kochi city to assess the need to run green fuel buses. We have put up a proposal to run the buses at Calicut in the second stage and Thiruvananthapuram at the third stage,” said a senior KURTC officer.
As part of the Low Carbon bus project, KURTC will introduce 550 environment friendly buses operated by batteries and also run on CNG as metro feeder services. The vehicles include standard type buses and mini buses having a seating capacity of 42 and 27 respectively.
“One of the advantages is that the KURTC is operating at a profit unlike the KSRTC and also the kfw is interested in financing eco-friendly transport,” the officer said. The KURTC has already identified 44 metro feeder routes in Kochi city and its nearby satellite towns. It has also initiated discussions with the Indian Oil Corporation for setting up CNG dispensing stations in the Greater Cochin area.
The city feeder services would be operated such that maximum people would be benefitted and the services available at a frequency of five minutes. For this, planning is being done with the help of UMTC which helped cities such as Ahmedabad and Amritsar to implement Bus-based Public Transit Systems.
