Lucknow: An amalgamated air-conditioned mall with an AC food plaza, automated scanners at entry points, a VIP lounge, a bank, a post office and many more such facilities resembling posh township will enhance the travel experience of passengers when the state-of-the-art Alambagh bus station is inaugurated recently by the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

CM Yogi Adityanath inaugurated a first-of-its-kind, hi-tech Rs 232 crore bus terminal here and announced that 21 more bus stations and bus shelters across the state will be spruced up in coming days.

As a token start to the bus services from the Alambagh bus terminal, he also flagged off two buses to the Swami Narayan temple in Ayodhya.

Buses for commuters will be thrown open from Wednesday when, under the first phase, 395 air-conditioned buses will start plying from this bus terminal.

Officials said buses for Gorakhpur (30), Varanasi (14), 94 luxury buses for Delhi and Agra as well as normal service buses (306) for Varanasi, Allahabad, Jhans, Hardoi and Etawah will ply from this terminal.

Speaking on the occasion, Adityanath said his government had made travel free for differently abled on any state-owned bus running anywhere in the country and have also made travel on the festival of ‘Raksha Bandhan’ free for girls and women of Uttar Pradesh.

Work on the bus terminal started in 2012 during the Samajwadi Party (SP) regime and party workers inaugurated the terminal symbolically late on Monday, having accused the ruling BJP of trying to hijack the good work done by the Akhilesh Yadav government.

The terminal is linked with Metro services, has five lifts and has a shopping mall, an official told media persons. It has an air-conditioned food court, a theatre, ATMs, an AC waiting room, luggage scanners and a passenger capacity of 25,000 at a given time.

Other than the facility of parking 50 buses on the ground level, there will be space to park 50 buses in an underground parking.

Uttar Pradesh can now easily boast of a ‘world class’ bus terminal that has been built at a cost of Rs 235 crore and has amenities like a shopping mall, a gaming zone and also a six-screen multiplex.

The terminal in Lucknow was built under a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model by the Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (UPSRTC) and Shalimar Group.

The high-end bus terminus also boasts of air-conditioned waiting rooms and buses along with inter-modal connectivity with a Metro station on the premises.

CM Yogi Adityanath who inaugurated the terminal, said, “Better transportation facilities are a must for overall development and the BJP government is committed to providing modern facilities at bus stands.”

Lauding Transport Minister Swatantra Dev Singh for bringing the state transport department from running in losses to earning a profit of Rs 122 crore in 2017-18, Yogi added that the upcoming Kumbh Mela in Allahabad would be a big challenge for the UP transport corporation to ferry the huge number of pilgrims.

The new Alambagh Bus Terminal is an advanced transit complex with a six-screen multiplex and a world-class hotel along with a mega mall, food court and gaming zone built on a mammoth area to make travelling in Lucknow pleasurable.

Lucknow’s Alambagh bus station gets face life, developed as International terminal:

“This is an astounding state-of-the-art transit station complex of the modern era and is absolutely vital for a rapidly growing city like Lucknow. We are confident that this new bus stand will help people commute in a smooth and hassle free way. The mall will be live by 2019,” said Kunal Seth, Director of Shalimar Corp Ltd.

A hotel adjacent to the newly inaugurated bus terminal and Metro station is expected to optimize hospitality, reduce traffic and benefit ease of travelling for commuters passing through Lucknow. Proximity to Lucknow Central and other important roads further enhances the accessibility for the complex.

While the Alambagh Bus Terminal will have modern international facilities to cater to lakhs of travellers, the adjoining mall and entertainment complex would offer them a break from their long journeys. The hotel, on the other hand, would make for a comfortable premium lodging for the commuters in the same complex.

Being touted as the country’s best bus station in terms of passenger amenities, it is ready for operations three years after the work started.

Usually, the very thought of a bus station draws in one’s mind images of passengers bumping into each other, baggage scattered here and there, dingy buses parked under a shade and dirty toilets.

But it is claimed the UP State Road Transport Corporation’s (UPSRTC) first bus station built under the public-private partnership may change people’s perception of bus stations in the state.

“Once the issue with regard to user charges is settled, the modern Alambagh bus station, full of passenger amenities, will be opened for bus operations,” UPSRTC managing director P Guru Prasad said.

“The developer wants to levy user charges on passengers while we are against the proposal. The matter has been referred to the state government for arbitration,” he explained.

The state government was expected to give the green signal to the inauguration of the bus station by the month end pending the dispute, people familiar with the matter in the UPSRTC said.

Developed and designed by Shalimar Malls Pvt Ltd, a private company, at a cost of over Rs 200 crore, the Alambagh bus station is spread over 26,500 sqmt.

The new bus station was built after dismantling the earlier one as part of an agreement signed between the developer and the UPSRTC in April 2015.

The developer will own the bus station for 32 years and the lease period is expandable for the next 30 years more on the first right to call basis.

Apart from an AC mall that is under construction, the Alambagh bus station also has an AC food plaza, canteen, eating points, a concourse area, automated bus in-shedding and out-shedding boom barrier regulated entry, automated passenger information service and the like. Besides, there are 50 bus departure platforms and underground parking for idle buses.

“Our Alambagh bus station is not only the state’s first PPP bus station but perhaps the country’s best one in terms of scale of passenger amenities,” claimed a UPSRTC official.

He said the corporation was going to float bids for the construction of 21 similar bus stations in various cities. “They include two more in Lucknow (Gomti Nagar and Charbagh), one each in Kanpur, Bareilly and Aligarh, two each in Allahabad, Meerut and Ghaziabad and three in Agra. All of them will be developed on PPP,” said the official.