New spin: MTDC to revamp its open-deck bus tour

Parag Jain Nainuttia, MTDC, said, “We plan to do up the interiors of the buses and offer music, food, more guides and audio visual screens on the bus. We also hope to start activities such as karaoke on the bus.”

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However, for now, the tour will still not offer dedicated buses running at a fixed frequency through the day, with tourists having the liberty to stop at various spots and spend as much time as they wish to, an underlining feature of the ‘hop on, hop off’ service internationally.

The MTDC operates the bus tour called the ‘Nilambari open-deck bus tour’ in two batches in the evenings on weekends around south Mumbai in an open-top double-decker bus obtained from the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking. The tour starts from the Gateway of India and showcases major tourist attractions in south Mumbai such as Mantralaya, the Queen’s Necklace, Vidhan Bhavan, Asiatic Library, Hutatma Chowk, CST station and so on, without any halts. At present, the footfall for the bus tour is not significant, Nainuttia said.

“Shortly, we hope to start one more route. This would be along the Bandra Worli Sea Link, moving along the Worli sea face and back,” he added.

Jagdish Patil, general manager at the BEST undertaking, said, “BEST is positive about this initiative. I have asked staff to look at the viability.”

An official who did not wish to be named said the MTDC has a master plan of starting more routes for such bus tours in the city including to Sanjay Gandhi National Park-Kanheri caves, and another connecting various museums around south Mumbai.

manasi.phadke@expressindia.com