The city bus service launched around 18 months back by the Gurugram Metropolitan City Bus Limited (GMCBL) has received positive response from the audience and in the past month the ridership touched 2 crore mark. In less than 18 months since its launch, the city bus service, run by the Gurugram Metropolitan City Bus Limited (GMCBL), has achieved a cumulative ridership of two crore passengers this past month. The bus service is called ‘Gurugaman’ and presently has a fleet of 154 buses plying on 18 routes.
Sonal Goel, a 2008-Batch IAS officer and CEO of GMCBL announced, on March 3, that the city bus service has achieved the two crore ridership on February 23.
The Gurugram bus service received ‘Commendable Initiative Award’ last year from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India, for ‘Best City Bus Service’ project.
Goel said, “From February 2020, we are ferrying an average of 583 passengers per bus which compares very favorably to the most efficient US transit systems. In February 2020, bus routes 111A, 215B, 111B, 134B and 238 carried more than 600 passengers per bus.”
Goel has conducted special drives for promoting safe and fearless travel for women in the bus service. A number of initiatives such as putting stickers carrying Women Helpline 1091 to stickers that read ‘You are under CCTV surveillance’ to Goel herself taking a ride in the bus has been taken by GMCBL.
The bus service was launched by Manohar Lal Khattar, Chief Minister of Haryana on September 2, 2018. The GMCBL was formed in 2017 as a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) by the Government of Haryana in association with Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA), Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG), and Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC).
