The much needed bus service from Krantivira Sangolli Rayanna (KSR) Railway Station in Majestic to different parts of Bengaluru was inaugurated on Monday by Bengaluru Central MP, PC Mohan and BMTC Chairman NS Nandiesha Reddy.

Other dignitaries present at the inaugural ceremony included  BMTC MD  C Shikha, BMTC Director (Security and Vigilance) Anupam Agrawal, Divisional Railway Manager Ashok Kumar Verma, and Additional Divisional Railway Manager Kalyani Scthuraman.

While the launch of this project was due for earlier this month, it had to be postponed due to the Model Code of Conduct put in place for the bye-polls.

From now on, buses will be available from the third entrance which opens to Platform 1 of the railway station and also has the Kempegowda Metro Station in the vicinity.

In the introductory phase of the service, the buses will go to peripheral areas of the city like Kadugodi, Hoskote, Attibele, Sarjapur, Yelahanka and Nagawara. In total, there will be 54 trips covered by this buses with nine trips for each of the areas on the outskirts, starting from 6 am to 10:30 pm in the night.

This move by the BMTC comes after it signed up Kannada film star Puneeth Rajkumar to be its brand ambassador on Friday.

In the previous week, the BMTC along with the traffic police and BBMP, had held a bus yatra to promote the ‘Nimbus’ which runs on the bus priority lane (BPL) on Outer RIng Road between KR Puram and Silk Board.

Under this BPL system, the left lane of this entire stretch is reserved only for BMTC Nimbus buses. Nimbus is short for Nimma Bus, meaning ‘your bus’ in Kannada. 

This is done to ensure that BMTC buses travel faster, and people are motivated to ditch private vehicles in favour of the bus. This is aimed at ultimately reducing congestion on the roads and pollution.