Jalandhar, June 15
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday jointly flagged off the Volvo bus service to the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport in New Delhi from here.
"This is a historic occasion when the Punjab government has fulfilled its promise with the people by ending monopoly of the private transporters and introducing cheap and luxury travel to IGI airport in merely Rs 1,170 thereby stopping loot of people," said Mann while addressing the gathering.
The Chief Minister said daily seven Volvo buses would ply from the Jalandhar bus stand to the Delhi airport. Likewise, he said 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 travel to airport at a meagre price.
The Chief Minister said the passengers desirous of going to airport can get the online booking done prior to three months of travel whereas the tickets can be booked at the counters of bus stand six months ahead of the journey.
Squarely blaming the successive Congress and Akali governments for not plying government buses to the airport, he said 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.
Mann also thanked the Delhi government, especially his counterpart, for extending cooperation to them for this noble cause.
In his address, Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal vowed to make Punjab a gangster-free land. He said gangster culture was nurtured by the Akalis and Congress who openly patronised these criminals. He said now when patronisations of these gangsters have ended they will be soon behind the bars.
He said it was a significant day for Punjab as the Volvo buses started departing to the IGI Airport. He said this facility would be smoother and beneficial especially for the Punjabi diaspora.
He said the AAP's government is an honest one, which has been working in a transparent manner, paving a way for implementation of pro-people initiatives.
Kejriwal said the AAP government had strongly and squarely hit the corruption in the state to wipe out this menace for the welfare of people. There was a rare example of honest government in the country as the AAP government had put its own minister behind the bars on the charges of graft.
He said the AAP government had also waged a war against transfer and transport mafia so that people could not be harassed for the works in offices.
