new delhi more than two years after the central government made a big bang budget announcement on launching a rs 18000crore scheme for deploying 20000 city buses the government is yet to green light the project the issue has now been flagged by a parliamentary committeethe housing and urban affairs ministry in its response has said that it recently sent the proposal to the cabinet seeking its approval after getting the go ahead from the finance ministry only last decembersources said the scheme would be rolled out in 100 tier2 and tier3 cities and cover those that have no governmentrun bus transport system they added that a decision will be taken by the cabinet on whether to have only electric or both diesel and electric buses under this schemeas per the plan the buses will be procured and operated by private players city agencies will pay the private players on the basis of the distance covered by each bus per day this opex model has been successfully launched in delhiwhile presenting the budget on february 1 2021 finance minister nirmala sitharaman had said the government would work towards raising the share of public transport in urban areas through expansion of metro rail network and augmentation of city bus service announcing this she had said the scheme will facilitate deployment of innovative ppp models to enable private sector players to finance acquire operate and maintain over 20000 busesthe share of buses in india in the total vehicle fleet has been less than 1 for years despite successive governments having made announcements to increase the number of buses for public transport to discourage people from owning private vehiclesflagging the nonimplementation of the budget announcement the parliamentary standing committee of the housing and urban affairs ministry had sought its status details the panel in its report which was submitted to both houses of parliament on monday has recorded that the ministry informed the committee that the draft cabinet note of the proposed scheme was sent to the finance ministry on may 17 2022 for its approval and it has got the nodregarding the latest status of the scheme the ministry has informed that the approval of the finance minister on the draft cabinet note has been obtained on december 5 2022 and submitted for the consideration and approval of the cabinetthe standing committee said it was surprised to note how the scheme is still at approval stage and even in budgetary allocation for the financial year 202324 no provision has been made for this scheme