Bathinda, a leading commercial centre in southern Punjab, contributes a lot for the State’s revenue. MOTORINDIA recently had the opportunity to visit the ‘City of Lakes’ and meet one of the prominent bus operators of the area known as Dabwali Transport Company. Located in the Malwa region, 225 km west of the capital city of Chandigarh, it is a leading luxury bus service provider in North India, covering several routes towards Delhi and entire Punjab.
We caught up with Mr. Mohd. Jameel, Director, Dabwali Transport Co., who stated: “We are a public company incorporated on August 14, 1943. We initially started our association with Bedford Vehicles and later on switched over to home-grown brands. When I joined in 1967, we had around 20 buses in our fleet. We eventually started snapping up multiple single/double permit holders and ramped up our fleet count to 85 over a period of time. Now our fleet strength has grown manifold and will be reaching 300 vehicles soon.”
It is to be mentioned that Dabwali has other sister concerns like Taj Travels (started in 2008 and running ordinary buses), Orbit Aviation (started in 2007 and running ordinary buses, Indo Canadian (Started in 2011, offering Mercedes Buses for travel between Jalandhar to Delhi Airport). The vehicle strength of all the four entities put together is 261 (Volvo & Mercedes Benz – 88 Nos, Tata – 173 Nos). The company’s daily commute is 800 km for ordinary buses and 650 km for luxury buses. The average age of its entire fleet is 10 years and less, and there are nearly 250 drivers on its rolls.
Asked to shed some light on the company’s association with JK Tyre, Mr. Jameel stated: “We joined hands with JK in 1997 and started with just 20 tyres per month. Our association with them has been quite cordial for nearly two
decades. As we expanded our fleet size, our business with JK has also enhanced and they have been constantly supporting us through thick and thin. Their policies are customer-centric and business-friendly, and their after-sales service is also very supportive, proactively sorting out our problems.”
Talking about the radialization in its fleet, he observed: “We started with JK JUH tyres five years ago, and now the entire fleet is 100 per cent run on radial tyres. Our tyres give an average first life of 1.25 lakh km and we retread and reuse them up to two times. We are currently having tyre fitments of 295/80 R22.5 JUL1 in tubeless and 1000 R20 JUH5 in tube type, which will be further scaled up in the next few years as we increasing our fleet size with more buses.”
Mr. Jameel also said that tyre is a vital component of the transport sector as it maintains profitability for the operator. “Tyres account for seven per cent of our operational expenses. Allying with JK Tyre has been very rewarding for us as they have offered us wheel-alignment solutions in our workshop which improve the tyre life span by nearly 20,000 km. Also, the JK Fleet Management Team has assisted with its valuable inputs which have helped improve the efficiency of our operations”, he added.
When quizzed further about the advantages of using JK radials, the company director summed up by stating: “In our future course of action, we will definitely continue with JK’s radials as they enable higher fuel efficiency, better braking efficiency and higher durability. We are very happy to partner them and hope to continue our strong association with them in the coming years.”