Drive to monetise surplus land of transport units, says Adhikari

The state transport department will make renewed efforts to monetise the surplus land of ailing State Transport Units to generate maximum revenue from idle resources, Subhendu Adhikari said in the Assembly on Friday. He tabled a total outlay of Rs 1250.75 crore for 2016-17. He said the surplus land of Tollygunge tram depot had been monetised successfully at a cost of Rs 180 crore. This sum will be spent to rejuvenate Calcutta Tramways Company (CTC). Earlier, a sum of Rs 25 crore had been mobilised by monetisation of three other depots of CTC. The department has taken up the process of monetisation of idle surplus land of six more depots of CTC and the Neilgunge depot of the Calcutta State Transport Corporation (CSTC). Adhikari said the department was committed to providing better facilities to passengers with more emphasis on road safety.

An Intelligent Transport System would be introduced in a phased manner in the newly inducted fleet of buses of the  State Transport Undertakings (STU) where GPS enabled services would be made available to the passengers through their mobile apps besides various safety measures like CCTV, panic button etc. He said new 225 new buses including 80 AC vehicles would be deployed in Kolkata, Barrackpore, Howrah and Bidhannagar. New bus stands with improved infrastructure would come up at Howrah, Garia and Jadavpur. He said the state government would have zero tolerance for bus strikes. With a view to ensuring better amenities at jetties, it has been decided that management of all important and major jetty ghats within the Kolkata metropolitan Area will be brought under the control of transport department. The transport department hopes to maximise revenue from motor vehicle tax during the current financial year and has set itself a Rs 2060 crore target, during 2016-17. 

The revival of old airports namely, Malda, Balurghat and restoration of air service in Kolkata- Cooch Behar are of prime concern to the state government. The AAI has agreed to hand over 132 acre land of Balurghat airport and 114 acre in Malda airport initially for a period of 30 years at a token cost of 

Rs 1 for each airport.