UP inks bus service pacts with J&K, Uttarakhand
LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday signed an inter-state agreement with Jammu and Kashmir, paving the way for operation of direct bus services from the state’s various cities to Katra (Vaishnodevi) and back.
Uttar Pradesh also signed a memorandum of understanding with Uttarakhand formalising the 17-year old stopgap arrangement on inter-state bus operations. Uttar Pradesh had no inter-state bus operation agreement with J & K, so far.
Transport minister Swatandra Dev Singh and his J&K counterpart Sunil Kumar Sharma signed the agreement on the bus service to Katra.
Singh also signed the MoU on UP-Uttarakhand services with Yash Pal Arya, the Uttarakhand transport minister. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath and his Uttarakhand counterpart Trivendra Singh Rawat were present at the function at 5, Kalidas Marg here.
Principal secretary, transport, Aradhana Shukla and UPSRTC managing director P Guruprasad were among others present during the occasion.
Under the agreement with J&K, the two states will operate their buses on Mathura-DelhiKatra, Saharanpur-Ambala-Jalandhar-Pathankot-Jammu-Katra and Muzaffarnagar-Haridwar-Jammu-Katra routes.
As per the agreement, UPSRTC buses will operate 816 km on the three routes in J&K
every day while the latter will operate 1846 km on UP’s as many routes every day.
The routes finalised for the inter-state bus operations between UP and Uttarakhand include Delhi-Rishikesh, Delhi-Dehradun, Delhi-Kotdwar, Delhi-Haldwani, Delhi-Haridwar, Mathura-Haridwar, ha ra dun, Ag ra-Meerut-Rishikesh, Mora dab ad-Haldwa ni Sahara np ur, Aligarh-Haldwani, Bareilly-Haridwar, Mathura-Jaipur-Mathura-Haridwar,
Delhi-Moradabad-Banwasa-Mahendra Nagar (Nepal).
UP’s buses will operate 1,40,000 km on 216 routes in the Uttarakhand while Uttarkhand’s buses will operate 2,50,000 km on 335 routes in UP every day after the agreement.
P Guruprasad, said the corporation would ply its new AC and high-end Volvo buses, apart from ordinary buses, on the identified routes connecting J&K as well as Uttarakhand.