Jorhat, Jan. 3: The Assam State Transport Corporation has allotted 15 new buses for rural routes across the state as a New Year gift for people living in the remote areas. The buses will start plying with immediate effect. The ASTC has set guidelines for the base stations and buses will ply adhering to it to prevent losses. The buses are the first phase of vehicles procured by the transport PSU under a scheme to provide 100 buses for remote rural routes with funding from the state government. The total cost incurred for the plan is Rs 20 crore. Among the five ASTC divisions for which the buses are being allotted, Sivasagar is the only one in Upper Assam and has been allotted the highest number of buses (four). The other four divisions are North Lakhimpur, Bongaigaon, Silchar and Guwahati. ASTC sources said an order issued by managing director K.N. Chetia on December 24 said the base stationsbuses would run the buses on the rural routes and maintain them. Each bus is a hi-tech semi-deluxe 30-seater. To ensure that the buses do not run into losses, the transport PSU has asked the base stations to run each bus for at least 250km every day and not ply without at least 80 per cent of total passenger capacity. Sources said the move was aimed at increasing the revenue of the ASTC. The corporation had incurred losses to the tune of Rs 6,473.85 lakh between 2005-06 and 2009-10. Sources said some buses had reached their stations while others were on their way. Four buses reached Sivasagar on Wednesday and started plying from Thursday. Under Nazira base station, one bus will ply daily from Deupani to Sivasagar town. Another bus from Nazira will ply from Bamunpukhuri to Sivasagar. Under Sonari base station, one bus will ply daily from Barhat to Sivasagar while another will ply from Baruahnagar to Sivasagar. Other routes in the state are Johing-North-Lakhimpur-Panigaon, Matmara-North Lakhimpur, Kashikutra-Bongaigaon, Dhubri-Nalbari, Kokrajhar-Gossaigaon, Amranagar-Silchar, Ramkrishnanagar-Karimganj, Jonai-Dhemaji and Guwahati-Shillong. Sources said some of the routes were new while others were old ones that had to be abandoned because of shortage of vehicles when the ASTC had gone bankrupt a decade ago. Top