Notes on Chandigarh

CHANDIGARH, July 27 - The Chandigarh Transport Undertaking (CTU) in collaboration with the Bharat Heavy Electrical Limited (BHEL) has short-listed five major routes areas in the city where electric trolley bus system will operate.

This was disclosed by Mr D.K. Sinha, General Manager of BHEL, while giving a presentation about the system to senior UT officials, including the UT Administrator, Lieut-Gen J.F.R. Jacob (retd), here today.

Giving details about the route, Mr Sinha said that Dhillon Cinema Chowk to Panjab University ( 14 km), Dhillon Cinema to Government Nursery (13 Km) , Old ISBT to New ISBT, Sector 43 (8.8 km), Sukhna lake to ISBT ( 11.5 km), proposed depot to Transport Chowk (4.4 km), have been identified.

This does not mean that trolleys can run only between these destinations but several routes will be planned within these areas to service a large number of destinations.

The bus will be like any normal bus with pneumatic tyres and would ply on normal existing roads like other vehicles. This would draw power from overhead contact wire. Unlike a railway engine the bus has a system of clip on to keeping contact with power of the overhanging wire. The entire project would require something like 3 mega watt of power.

The bus also enjoys good horizontal movement thus can run anywhere on the road and not stick to a fixed track as in case of electric railway engines, a source said while explaining the system. Meanwhile, during the presentation, Mr Sinha said the system is totally flexible to meet the changing needs of traffic diversions. Globally there are 30,000 such electric bus systems running. Initially for the Chandigarh project, a few buses having a capacity of 100 passengers would be imported with phased indigenisation through technology transfer and BHEL proposes to complete the project in two years, after it gets a go ahead from the administration.

General Jacob said the administration would examine the pros and cons of the proposal keeping in view its cost and benefit to the people as compared with alternate systems of transport. He asked BHEL to give a presentation on introduction of battery-operated buses on ancillary routes. The administrator said all possible options to finance the 100 crore project would be studied by the administration if it decides to go ahead. 

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Chandigarh, city in northern India, in the centrally administrated Union Territory that was formed in 1966. Construction of the city began in 1950 at a site near the old village of Chandigarh. It was designed by an international team under the direction of the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier. The streets are laid out in a grid pattern that divides the city into 47 sectors. Most of the modern buildings were completed by 1956, and the city became the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana states. The change for it to become the capital of Punjab alone, originally scheduled for 1986, has been delayed while the two states seek agreement as to which
Hindi-speaking districts shall be transferred to Haryana in exchange. Population (1991, greater city) 574,646.