Punjab government to resume bus services to Delhi airport soon: Minister

State-owned undertakings' bus services up to the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport in Delhi will be resumed soon, according to Punjab Transport Minister Laljit Singh Bhullar. The subject was brought up during the secretary-level meeting of the transport ministries of both states after a discussion between the chief ministers of Punjab and Delhi, according to Bhullar. 

He said during a recent meeting with Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, he apprised him about this long-pending issue, which was directly connected with an increase in the revenue of the transport department, according to an official release.

"I also informed the chief minister about the issue of looting of state's passengers by private bus operators due to non-availability of public bus service", the Punjab Transport Minister said.

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Mann had recently taken up the matter with his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal.

Bhullar said he had asked Transport Secretary Vikas Garg to hold a meeting with the Delhi government officials concerned. A meeting between Garg with Delhi Principal Transport Secretary Ashish Kundra and officials of the IGI Airport was held.

The transport minister said the state-owned buses would be able to provide affordable service to passengers up to the Delhi airport from different cities of Punjab.

Transport Secretary Garg said during the meeting, Kundra assured that this issue would be resolved soon and state-owned buses would be able to ply up to the Delhi airport. The previous Congress regime had accused the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi of not allowing state-owned buses to ply up to the Delhi international airport.

Congress legislator Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, who was the transport minister in the previous Charanjit Singh Channi-led government, had even asked Kejriwal in Amritsar in December last year why his government was not letting Punjab's state-owned buses travel up to the Delhi airport.

Warring had then said that private buses that charge almost thrice the fare were being allowed to ply all the way to the IGI Airport, but Volvo buses of the state transport undertaking had been barred from travelling to the Delhi airport.

In March this year, Congress legislator Partap Singh Bajwa sought from Chief Minister Mann to raise with Kejriwal the issue of allowing state-owned buses to travel up to the international airport in the national capital.

Bajwa had said the state-owned transport undertakings -- Pepsu Road Transport Corporation (PRTC) and Punbus -- were not allowed to ply all the way to the Delhi airport.

With inputs from PTI