Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today jointly flagged off the bus service to Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport, New Delhi from the city.

“This is a historic occasion when the Punjab government has fulfilled its promise with the people by ending the monopoly of the private transporters and introducing cheap and luxury travel to IGI airport in merely Rs 1170 thereby stopping loot of people”, said Mann while addressing the gathering.

The Punjab CM said daily seven Volvo buses will ply from Jalandhar bus stand to Delhi airport. Likewise, he said that similar buses will also move from Amritsar, Pathankot, Ludhiana, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala, Patiala, and even from Chandigarh daily to the airport for facilitating the passengers.

Mann said with the plying of these buses the passengers will get a comfortable, luxurious, and cheap journey to the airport at a meagre price. He said passengers desirous of going to the airport can get the online booking done prior to three months of travel whereas the tickets can be booked at the counters of the bus stand six months ahead of the journey.

Mann said his government has got the mandate of people to serve the state by eliminating the mafia. He said that the rolling of these buses now by the transport mafia will also be a thing of the past. He said for decades only private transporters had run their buses on this route and looted the people by charging impulsively. Squarely blaming the successive Congress and Akali governments for not plying government buses to the airport, the CM said the vested interests of these leaders prohibited them from doing so.

Mann said the transporter leaders of both these parties minted the money illegally by not allowing government buses to operate on this route. The CM said his government will take every initiative to safeguard the interests of Punjabis and eliminate all sorts of mafia or monopolisation from the state.

Mann said a number of non-resident Indians who came to Punjab from abroad had always complained to him that why only private players have the right to ply buses on this route and why not government buses are running on them. He said now the Punjab government will run these super luxurious buses that will charge less than half of the private transporters and give double facilities than them.