Chief Minister Vijay Rupani directs ST bus service to start from May 20, 2020

Gandhinagar: Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani here today relaxed lockdown for Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation (popularly called ST) bus service in five zones across the state, but excluding containment zones, from Wednesday May 20, 2020 in tandem with Central Government guidelines.

The relaxation is roughly for the entire state, except the entire Ahmedabad district as it is declared as containment zone. The Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar ST City Bus Service (average 30 km distance) and other intra-state buses will not run on these routes till further notice.

The buses will ply between 8 am and 6 pm maintaining complete social distancing owing to the prevailing situation in the wake of novel coronavirus COVID-19. It will begin with 1,145 schedule and 7,033 trips. Buses will run to maximum 60 per cent of capacity. They will be completely sanitized after every trip.

Passengers wearing masks have to reach bus stands minimum 30 minutes before departure for temperature and health checkup for symptoms, and buy tickets at the stands before boarding the bus, and have to throughout maintain social distancing from boarding to alighting.

It is desired that passengers buy tickets online or on mobile, but can buy in cash from the counters at the stand.

The ST bus service in the five zones will be gradually relaxed further. North Zone includes Banaskantha, Patan, Mehsana, Sabarkantha, Aravalli and Gandhinagar. Central Zone includes Kheda, Panchmahals, Mahisagar, Vadodara, Dahod, Anand and Chhotudepur. South Zone includes Surat, Valsad, Tapi, Dangs, Bharuch, Narmada and Navsari. Saurashtra Zone includes Rajkot, Morbi, Junagadh, Porbandar, Botad, Bhavnagar, Amreli, Jamnagar, Surendranagar and Gir-Somnath. Kutch Zone will coordinate buses for North and Saurashtra Zones.

ST running short distance inter-district and intro-district routes will have to ensue they do not pass through containment zones.