Delhi-Kathmandu bus services to restart after 19-month break

Only passengers with a final vaccination certificate (having taken both doses of a Covid-19 vaccine) and an RT-PCR negative report will be allowed to board the bus on this special route

New Delhi: The Delhi-Kathmandu bus service, known as the ‘Maitri Bus Sewa’, will resume from Wednesday (December 15) after being suspended for nearly 19 months due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) announced on Tuesday.

The Delhi-Kathmandu bus service, also called the Maitri Bus Sewa, was launched in November 2014. (HT Archive)

Only passengers with a final vaccination certificate (having taken both doses of a Covid-19 vaccine) and an RT-PCR negative report will be allowed to board the bus on this special route.

The first bus on the route will start from the Ambedkar Bus Terminal at 10 am on Wednesday. After this, the bus will depart for Kathmandu from the same terminal every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The return bus from Kathmandu to Delhi will run on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

The fare for the journey is around ₹2,800, which was ₹2,300 before the pandemic. The bus service, connecting the capital cities of India and Nepal, was launched in November 2014. The operation of the bus was shut down on March 23, 2020 amid the first wave of the pandemic.

“The latest Covid-19 protocols/guidelines issued by the ministry of home affairs (MHA) will to be followed in true spirit. It will be mandatory for all the passengers to carry a certificate of both doses of Covid-19 vaccine and a negative RT-PCR test report within 72 hours of the start of the journey. The passengers will not be allowed to board the bus if they fail to produce the documents,” said DTC deputy chief general manager (PR) RS Minhas.

The bus service covers a distance of 1,167 km between Delhi and Kathmandu with stoppages at Firozabad, Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh and Mugling (Nepal). The bus will also stop at Sanauli (India-Nepal border) for customs checking. Passengers travelling between Delhi and Kathmandu are not allowed to disembark or embark enroute except at the scheduled halts.

The Maitri Bus Sewa was initiated as a symbol of friendship between India and Nepal and since its beginning, the buses have frequently carried pilgrims, tourists, foreign delegates and the general public from both the nations.

Delhi-Lahore bus stays suspended

Meanwhile, the Delhi-Lahore bus service of the DTC, popularly known as ‘Sada-e-Sarhad’, continues to remain suspended until further orders, senior officials of the corporation said.

The DTC had suspended the bus service for Lahore in 2019. This decision was taken after Pakistan suspended the Delhi-Lahore bus service in the wake of India revoking the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370.