Nagpur: Even as issue of green bus maker Scania shifting its buses out of city has become the talk of the town, the Nagpur Municipal Corporation’s city transport department had slapped notice on the company for doing so without prior information to the civic body.
Besides, NMC has also raised objection over the way Scania has dismantled ethanol fuel dispensing unit at Khapri. Scania had shifted 24 of the 25 ethanol buses, probably to Bengaluru, putting in haywire, NMC’s plan to resume the country’s first green city bus service. Chairman of city transport committee Bunty Kukde conducted an investigation and found only one bus was left in the city.
Following Kukde’s directives, city transport manager Shivaji Jagtap sent notice to Torbjorn Glad, CEO of Scania’s special purpose vehicle — SST Sustainable Transport Solutions. “It is a very serious issue that you unilaterally shifted buses from the city. The buses were registered with RTO as public transport vehicles. Therefore, the permission of appropriate authority was mandatory, which was not ensured.
Therefore, we will take appropriate action against you after verifying legal provisions,” Jagtap said. Kukde said NMC will inform arbitrator AR Patil about the incident. “Scania had stopped the service unilaterally. NMC had refused to accept termination notice of Scania. It seems the company was not interested in serving the city, local people and country. We will take appropriate action, as we have Scania’s bank guarantee and payment,” he said.
