PANJIM, June 04: Amit Sharma, Special Secretary to Government, Transport Department with additional charge of J&K Road Safety Council made a visit to Automobile Corporation of Goa Limited (ACGL) which is an Associate Company of TATA Motors, to assess the progress where 36 SRTC Buses are being manufactured for Deployment to Chenab Valley by J&K SRTC in the coming days. During the visit, Amit Sharma was accompanied by Shekhar Dhule, Scientist ‘C’ level from Central Institute of Road Transport, Pune who are the experts for inspection of such Buses on count of Safety and Functional Standards before making final delivery of same to J&K SRTC.
During the visit, Amit Sharma, Special Secretary Trasnsport was very particular about ensuring to meet all safety parameters in these buses before actual delivery and further deployment of these 36 buses on the Chenab Valley and/or similar routes by J&K SRTC so as to ease out the commutation related challenges on hungry routes in far-flung belts of Jammu division. The accompanying Scientist Shekhar Dhule was directed by Special Secretary Amit Sharma to properly inspect and suggest corrective measures at this stage only so that TATA Motors with whom this order is placed by SRTC so that they can take necessary corrective measures to ratify the technical errors for future ensuring safety of commuters in Chenab Valley when they ride these buses, especially being a vulnerable and accident-prone area of J&K. AGCL was represented by its CEO O.V Ajay and DGM, Design & Development Dilip P. Desai who gave a detailed presentation of its operations and stage of Buses production for Chenab Valley before Special Secretary Amit Sharma, who later on, took an extensive round of the two production plants to assess the quality of ongoing works at AGCL regarding the order placed with TATA Motors for 36 Chenab Valley Buses.
During the tour of both plants of AGCL located in Goa, Special Secretary Amit Sharma alongwith AGCL team and CIRT Pune Expert inspected all ongoing processes and they assured Special Secretary Transport that ACGL shall ensure immediate delivery of all 36 buses well within the timelines of the Contract and all issues pointed out during the Inspection Tour shall be taken-up with TATA Motors so that Safety and Security of Commuters in Hilly Terrains of J&K can be ensured as per directions.
Apart from this, during the meeting with ACGL Goa Team, they also expressed interest with Special Secretary Amit Sharma that they can come-up with a similar kind of Plant in J&K as well in future if they can get a piece of land measuring 6-8 Acres for production of Hybrid and Electric Buses in future. Amit accordingly guided them to send a concept paper on same which shall be shared with concerned authorities for taking a final call in the matter. ACGL also disclosed that they spend very less time in assembling and rolling out the vehicles vis-a-vis other similar plants, as they use unique trolley technology for body building which saves time in finishing and completing the production work of buses on the Chasis sent by TATA Motors for such orders.
Before culminating the visit, Amit suggested AGCL and Tata Motors to define the final timelines of Delivery of Chenab Valley Buses so that a Joint Inspection can be conducted in near future to have a final look at Prototype Bus and this task can be accomplished in a time-bound manner to facilitate the cause of public staying in far-flung areas of Chenab Valley which they responded to in an affirmative manner.
|