Though the government has ordered the BDA (Bhopal Development Authority) to hand over the ISBT (Inter-State Bus Terminal) project to the Municipal Corporation, named as "Kushabhau Thakre Inter-state Bus terminal (I.S.B.T)" and work is being carried out at an impressive speed, it will still take another two months for inter-state operations to start. Currently, only 13 buses travel outside the state; 11 of them go to Rajasthan while one each goes to Nagpur and Amravati. All the 13 buses belong to Rajasthan and Maharashtra Transport Corporation. The ISBT project was intended to fill this gap, but it seems both the public and the government have to wait a bit longer to witness better inter-state bus services.
The ISBT building started on November 1, 2010.
According to reports, the state eventually plans to put around 400 buses under the project.
There is still some time before Bhopal could get its own Inter State Bus Terminal (ISBT). The project which is going to start under Public Private Partnership (PPP) will take one more year to start an ISBT in the city. Search of an operator under PPP will start only after Municipal Corporation gets the ownership rights of ISBT; however Municipal Corporation claims that as soon as they get the rights, ISBT will be started.
This must be noted that most of the work for ISBT had been finished in March-April itself. Since then, its inaugural has been awaited by both public and the government itself. According to the Municipal Corporation, 50 buses will be made operational foe the service, these buses will connect Bhopal to Hoshangabad, Nagpur, and Raisen.
