With the goal of connecting every village in the state with public transportation, the Yogi Andityanath Government in UP will soon commence bus services for 12,200 villages through UPSRTC, which caters to 88,000 villages of the state.

The state government has planned to fulfill the target through buses hired on contract. The information was given by the state government in response to a question asked in the assembly on Friday.

It is noteworthy that in a recent programme of the UPSRTC, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath himself made an appeal to the transport service to provide bus services to every village of the state.

In response to a question asked by a member of the Legislative Assembly, Transport Minister (Independent Charge) Daya Shankar Singh said the state government was working on the campaign, and soon there won’t be a single village in the state without access to Transport Corporation buses.

He further said that the intention of the government was to increase the number of contracted buses to provide employment to the people so that the bus service can reach every village.

The transport minister informed that more than 1.10 lakh buses of the Transport Corporation are operating in the state. Of these, 81,070 are corporation buses and 29,048 are contract buses. This means 26 per cent of the buses are contracted and 74 percent of the buses belong to roadways.

Answering a question related to the income of the Transport Corporation, he said, “Earlier the Transport Corporation was earning Rs 11 to 12 crores per day, now it has increased between Rs 18 and 21 crores per day.”

In response to another question related to ‘Daggamar( illegal) buses’, the transport minister insisted that not a single ‘Daggamar bus’ was operating in the state. Raising objection to the word ‘Daggamar’, he said, “Not a single bus would be found in the state plying without a national permit. Every bus is allowed to run only after insurance and fitness test.”

He informed that the Transport Department is taking strict action against those who are operating buses violating the rules.