The Transport Ministry will submit more information on the proposal to lease 4,000 natural-gas-powered (CNG) buses for the Bangkok Metropolitan Transit Authority (BMTA) to the Cabinet, which will consider the project in the next two months.
Deputy Minister Suchart Chokchaiwattanakorn said the ministry would provide details on how to implement the BMTA's early-retirement programme and on the possibility of extending the period for riding 800 buses free of charge.
The CNG bus project and the early-retirement programme are part of the plan to improve BMTA operations.
Suchart said the 2,000 employees who are interested in the early-retirement programme would be assigned to provide the free bus service.
He added that if the Cabinet approved the project, the CNG buses would be provided to the BMTA in the next two years. He denied that a rift in the coalition had prompted the Cabinet to delay giving the nod to the project.
The Cabinet declined to give approval to the project on August 10, saying at least three or four issues pertinent to the project needed to be resolved before final approval could be granted. One was the unclear plan on the 7,000 BMTA staff who would be made redundant by the scheme. As only 2,700 of them had expressed interest in joining the early-retirement scheme, Cabinet members needed clarification on what the government could do with the rest.