Bhubaneswar: Recognising the effort of Capital Region Urban Transport (CRUT) during COVID crisis, Arun Bothra, Managing Director, CRUT has been honored as one of ‘21Heroes2021‘ by TUMI (Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative), a leading global implementation initiative on sustainable mobility. The publication ‘21Heroes2021’ honors those who, despite historic challenges, made a difference to sustainable mobility in 2020 and laid the groundwork for even more successful initiatives in 2021.
The list of heroes includes Elon Musk, SpaceX-Founder and CEO of Tesla, USA, Soumini Jain, former Mayor of Cochin Corporation, Kochi, Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris, France, Areli Carreón, Bicycle Mayor of Mexico City, Mexico, Zannatul Ferdous, Mayor of Singra, Bangladesh and Anies Baswedan, Governor of Jakarta, Indonesia among others.
The individuals highlighted in this publication are a small, yet powerful group of people who are actively contributing to make mobility future-oriented, safe, inclusive and sustainable. It is worth mentioning that CRUT won Urban Mobility India award 2020 organised by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), Govt. of India for COVID management in November last year. The theme was ‘Innovations undertaken in Urban Transport during COVID-19’.
CRUT continued to provide essential service to keep city moving by undertaking safety measures for its employees and commuters during COVID crisis. From the very beginning of pandemic, CRUT started sanitizing buses. No standing passengers were allowed to travel in the buses. Wearing of mask was made compulsory for all the passengers while they commute in MoBus. Even when regular service was suspended for daily commuters, CRUT continued to serve the citizens. There was dedicated bus service to emergency helpline & health workers. MoBus was used for delivery of essential items in the containment zones of city. Bus Queue Shelters (BQS) were used as vegetable vending zone during the lockdown.
Another significant effort by CRUT was 100 hours (5 weeks) of online training imparted to over 1200 crew through program titled ‘Bus Pathsala’. Odisha Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik unveiled the book, ‘Bus Pathsala’ on the occasion of second anniversary of MoBus. This compilation of virtual training sessions conducted during COVID pandemic on soft skills and technical skills is first of its kind publication by any public transport company in the country.
Bothra said his name in the prestigious list as MD, CRUT is world level recognition of the serious efforts of Govt. of Odisha about COVID measures. He further added, “The COVID-19 measures taken by the state Govt. are considered one of the best in the country. We are happy that MoBus has lived up to the expectation of the Govt. as well as people of the Capital Region and enhanced the reputation of Odisha in terms of COVID management not only in India but in the world arena also.”
Bothra said, “I am thrilled to be on the list which includes eminent world leaders in the field of sustainable mobility. This will motivate us to provide better services to the commuters while taking all COVID precautions. I want to congratulate each and every member of CRUT family and specially my colleague Dipti Mahapatro, General Manager, CRUT and operation team members Chandan Mishra and Jayant Kumar for their relentless effort during COVID crisis. We also thank our partners Narbada Travels and Travel Time for joining hands with us in COVID efforts.”
He also thanked riders for this recognition. “They have trusted us from the beginning of service and continue to ride with us while following the safety protocols.”
Bothra further said, “As the normalcy prevails, our ridership has also increased gradually. At present 165 buses are operating on 25 routes with around 80000 footfall daily. We are hopeful; soon we will have more than 1 lakh commuters per day”.
