Routes for 100 new buses under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) have been finalised. Sixty low floor non-AC and 40 AC buses will start plying on these routes by December.

The Transport department has put as many as eight buses on a single route in order to reduce frequency to 15 minutes.

The non-AC buses will ply on grid routes, including the earlier neglected southern sectors, and the AC buses will ply on point-to-point routes.

“Routes have been finalised according to the demand for AC and non-AC buses. Non-AC buses will ply in southern sectors, including Sectors 38 (west), 44, 45, 46, 47 and Maloya and Ram Darbar,” M L Sharma, Director of the Chandigarh Transport Undertaking, said. “AC buses will ply on busy routes, including ISBT-43, ISBT-17, airport, Manimajra, IT Park and High Court.”

At present, Chandigarh has 29 bus routes under the grid system and 21 under the point-to-point system.

From the 29 routes, nine routes have been shortlisted for non-AC buses — six buses each will ply on four routes and seven each on the remaining five routes.

Similarly, seven routes have been shortlisted for AC buses on point to point routes — five buses each will ply on two routes, four each on three routes and eight each on the remaining two routes.

One non-AC bus and two AC buses will be kept as spare. The fare for these buses hasn’t been finalised.