The state Transport department will introduce 5,500 more vehicles under Gatidhara scheme, which is a dream project of the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
The main reason behind bringing the vehicles on the roads on an immediate basis is to give a stimulus to business in the Transport sector that witnessed a slowdown due to demonetisation of notes.
Alapan Bandyopadhyay, principal secretary of the Transport department, said: “Demonetisation has left an impact on the Transport sector. The introduction of the new vehicles will give stimulus to the economy of the sector.”
He was speaking at the inaugural programme of “CII Transport Expo-2016” on Saturday afternoon. The expo that started on Saturday at Milan Mela Ground will continue till December 5.
It may be mentioned that the target of the state Transport department is to help 7,500 people through Gatidhara scheme. The steps of introducing the vehicles, under the scheme, will create more jobs besides giving a boost to the transport sector.
Bandyopadhyay said: “The state government has created 7.5 lakh job opportunities in Transport sector in the past five years. Considering that there is a huge scope of creating job opportunities in the Transport sector in Bengal, the state Transport department is taking several steps to attract more investment in this sector. The state Transport department has set up a Task Force to speak to various stake holders in Transport sector to know how the process of allowing people to initiate business could be made easier.”
A meeting of the Task Force was held ten days ago in which the stake holders demanded introduction of systems like online registration and taxation.
The Transport department will also project the steps which were taken to simplify the process that is to be followed to start investing in the sector in the forthcoming Bengal Global Business Summit scheduled to be held on January 20 and 21.