DW BUREAU / Chandigarh With the initiation of luxury Volvo buses from Punjab to the IGI Airport Delhi by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann led Punjab Government, as many as 72,378 passengers have availed affordable bus service, while the government has generated revenue of over Rs.13.89 crore. Divulging further, Transport Minister Laljit Singh Bhullar said that the Punjab Roadways/Punbus and PRTC Volvo bus service from Punjab was inaugurated by the Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on June 15. Since then, about 25 Volvo buses are plying daily from Amritsar, Pathankot, Ludhiana, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala, Jalandhar, Patiala, Nawanshahr, Ropar, Moga and Chandigarh to the international airport in Delhi. The Cabinet Minister informed that from June 15 to November 30, around 24,302 passengers travelled in PRTC Volvo buses while 48,076 passengers travelled in volvo buses of Punjab Roadways/Punbus. During this period, the government has generated an income of Rs.13.89 crore on this route. He said the PRTC has earned over Rs.2.64 crore and Punjab Roadways/Punbus earned about Rs.11.25 crore revenue in this period from volvo buses. With the plying of these buses, said the Transport Minister, the passengers are getting a comfortable, luxurious and cheap travel to International airport at a meager price, and this initiative has also ended the monopoly of the private transporters besides stopping the loot of Punjabis. The Transport Minister bemoaned that for decades; only private transporters had run their buses on this route and looted the people by charging impulsively. Blaming the successive Congress and Akali governments for not plying government buses to the airport, Bhullar said that the vested interests of these leaders prohibited them from doing so. The transporter leaders of both these parties minted the money illegally by not allowing government buses to operate on this route, he added. The Transport Minister said that the Mann Government had started this Volvo bus service within three months after taking over in the state, and this historic decision is facilitating lakhs of NRIs of Punjab on one hand, similarly it is sounding death knell for the transport mafia. He also stressed that the mafia was being dealt with an iron hand as the State Government had a zero tolerance in this regard. The Cabinet Minister said that the Mann government is taking every initiative to safeguard the interests of Punjabis and eliminate all sorts of mafia or monopolization from the state. The Transport Minister said that 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 bus stand six months ahead of the journey. (editor@dailyworld.in)