Puducherry Road Transport Corporation
The Puducherry Road Transport Corporation (PRTC, French: Société des transports routiers de Pondichéry) is the government transport corporation in the union territory of Puducherry that provides services in all the four regions of Puducherry, namely Pondicherry, Karaikal, Mahé and Yanam. History Pondicherry Tourism Development Corporation Limited (PTDC) was incorporated during February 1986 to promote tourism in the union territory of Puducherry. With the introduction of transport service from March 1988, the corporation was converted into Pondicherry Tourism and Transport Development Corporation Limited (PT&TDC) with effect from December 1992. The corporation operates inter-state buses on 55 routes throughout the territory, providing direct services to important tourist destinations in all the southern states of India. PT&TDC has paid up capital of about Rs.28.42 crores and was incurring substantial annual losses in the tourism sector. Hence, the corporation was bifurcated with effect from 1 April 2005 into the Puducherry Road Transport Corporation (PRTC) and Pondicherry Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC), in order to focus on diversification and expansion projects. Fleet PRTC operates over 139 buses in various Inter-state and Intra-City routes. It operates around 40 JNNURM buses in all the 4 territories, viz: Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam, with a majority of them operating in Puducherry. The fleet with PRTC is entirely from Ashok Leyland. Routes It operates various inter-state routes, connecting important cities of Tamil Nadu and Kerala like Chennai, Tindivanam, Coimbatore, Tirunelveli, Kumbakonam, Kumily, Velankanni, Nagapattinam, Mayiladuthurai, Neyveli, Chidambaram, Viluppuram, Cuddalore , Palakkad, Malappuram, Kozhikode from its towns of Puducherry and Karaikal. It also operates to Mahe, Tirupathi, Bengaluru from Puducherry, which till date, are its only services outside Tamil Nadu. Off late, they have been adding more and more services in Mahe and Yanam. As of now, they are operating 3 JnNURM town buses, each in Mahe and Yanam. Class of services PRTC is now running the following types of buses, connecting different places in its 4 regions as well as to the neighboring states. City Ordinary - 2*2 City bus and 3*2 City bus City Semi Low Floor - 2*2 JnNURM bus Express - 3*2 Mofussil Bus Deluxe - 2*2 Non-Push Back Ultra Deluxe - 2*2 Push Back Volvo buses - 2*2 PDYCHN & PDYCUD Future plans and expansion PRTC has received a fresh batch of 25 buses from JnNURM for the city operations. Around 25 Semi-Low-Floor buses are being operated to destinations in and around the Pondicherry. It received another fresh batch of 14 new Semi-Low- Floor buses and they were inaugurated in the month of January, 3 out of which are running in Karaikal and Mahe, 2 in Yanam and the rest doing its service in Puducherry Urban Area in new routes. There is also a proposal to replace all the inter-state buses. All of them have done more than 10 lakh km and are very old. Very recently PRTC has added 4 Ultra Delux buses of Prakash P8000 Model on the Pondicherry–Mahé and Pondicherry–Nagercoil routes. Another 3 Ultra Delux buses are expected to be added to the