After a long wait of over two years,city residents can finally avail the services of mini AC buses. The 17 mini AC buses,in the offing for over two years now,are likely to ply from the first week of next month. Covering the populated routes including ISBTs,airport and railway station,the fare for these buses has been fixed at a pocket-friendly Rs 10. The routes fixed for the mini AC buses have been decided after analysing the passenger traffic load and subsequently the demand. The buses running on a point-to-point system would later be connected by another 40 AC buses by the grid system to be introduced in about three months, said Secretary (Transport) Ram Niwas. The Administration is also in the process of phasing out old CTU buses and replacing them with latest models. The first lot of new buses,under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission scheme,will include 80 buses by Tata: 40 AC and the same number of non-AC buses. The 37-seater mini buses,under trial at present,would ply at a frequency of 30 minutes with a fixed fare of Rs 10 on the eight routes within Chandigarh only. The routes* Airport to PGI via ISBT-17* Manimajra to PGI* ISBT-17 to Railway station* ISBT-43 to IT Park via Railway station* ISBT-43 to PGI via ISBT-17* ISBT-43 to High Court and Civil Secretariat via ISBT-17* Ram Darbar to ISBT-43 via ISBT-17* Railway station to ISBT-17
