In 6 months, travel in city on single ticket WHAT TO EXPECT Parties back to wooing Sidhu, AAP offers deputy CM’s post REKINDLED INTEREST

A single ticket for all modes of transport in the city in the next six months — that is the target set by the Devendra Fadnavis-led state government to introduce the much-discussed and delayed concept.

Speaking at an interaction with the Hindustan Times newsroom on Thursday, the chief minister said, “A chief secretary-led committee is working on it, but I am sure we will have a single-ticket system in the next six months. Initially, it will have some problems, let’s say, it will work in limited areas, but ultimately as the city’s Metro network expands every three to six months, so will the singleticketing system.”

The system is expected to integrate all existing and proposed transportation corridors of Mumbai – the city’s suburban railway system, Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) bus services, the Chembur-WadalaJacob Circle monorail and the city’s Metro network.

Fadnavis said the network is planned in a circular manner so that all routes, whether on the east, west, north or the south of the city, will be integrated and people will have a public transport solution to travel anywhere in Mumbai.

“On your mobile phone, if you select the Virar to Navi Mumbai route, it will offer you a solution with specific directions saying from one point to another you take the suburban railway, thereafter you will get a Metro, from there you will get a bus. If we offer an endto-end solution, and if public transport has enough place to sit or stand, I think people will prefer to use public transport in Mumbai,” the chief minister said.

Political pundits had almost written off cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Sidhu as a game-changer in the Punjab polls, but the former Test opener is now facing a problem of plenty with both the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) offering him deals.

Sources close to Sidhu said AAP has offered him the post of deputy chief minister if the party comes to power, besides two ministerial berths and five MLA tickets — including one for his wife Navjot Kaur Sidhu — to his newly formed outfit, the Awaaz-e-Punjab.

Though the claim was denied by Ankit Lal, who heads AAP’s information technology wing, none of the other party leaders in the state wanted to comment on the matter.

The Congress, for its part, offered Sidhu a Lok Sabha seat, six assembly seats to his outfit, and a cabinet berth for his wife were the party to win.

While AAP sent its national organisation-building in-charge Durgesh Pathak to strike a deal with Sidhu on Wednesday evening, the Congress reportedly got in touch with him through senior leader Ghulam Nabi Azad the following morning.