The draft New Comprehensive Mini Bus Scheme, 2024, notified by the Tamil Nadu government last week, proposes to allow operators to ply for a maximum permitted route length of 25 km. At present, minibuses are allowed to ply for a maximum of 20 km, of which 16 km should be in remote areas.
The State government’s draft follows a judgment of the Madras High Court’s Madurai Bench in 2018, which quashed the 2011 notification of the Tamil Nadu government. It had notified the New Comprehensive Scheme, 2011, that modified the Approved Modified Area Schemes, 1999. “The maximum permitted route length shall be 25 km in which the maximum unserved route length shall be 17 km and maximum served route length shall be 8 km, by adopting the 70:30 ratio respectively,” the notification by the Home (Transport) Department said.
The minimum unserved route length shall be 70% of the total route length and the maximum served route length shall not exceed 30% of the total route length, according to the draft scheme. The Regional Transport Authority would undertake a route identification survey. The State government has also called for objections or suggestions to the Secretary, Home Department, Chennai 600009. They would be taken up for consideration at a hearing to be held at the Secretariat here at 11 a.m. on July 22.
The draft New Comprehensive Mini Bus Scheme, 2024, is proposing minibus services across the State except for seven zones in Greater Chennai Corporation limits which would be treated as served areas. Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu in his budget speech delivered on the floor of the Assembly in February this year had announced that the minibus services would be extended to rural areas adjacent to rapidly growing urban areas, with revamped guidelines. The Transport Department had said in the Assembly last year that a comprehensive scheme was under its consideration, as per the orders of the Madurai Bench of the High Court.
The State government introduced the minibus scheme in 1997 through which operators were permitted to ply for a distance of 16 km (including an overlapping distance of 1 km). Two years later, the scheme was expanded to permit operators to ply for 20 km (with an overlapping distance not exceeding 4 km).
