Bengaluru: Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy said the government would fix a deadline for fitting the fire extinguishers in all private and government buses. The Transport Department had to invite tender to procure extinguishers for over 24,000 existing buses from the four corporations, he admitted.

Minister Reddy said department authorities are suspecting the role of combustible material that was allegedly being carried in the KSRTC bus leading to the fire accident near Nelamangala. “The Forensic Science Laboratory report is awaited,’’ the minister said.

He said the KSRTC buses that have covered over 9 lakh km will be off the roads by March and the KSRTC had been planned to phase out over 4,000 buses, over 5,500 new buses would be added by May. “Of the new buses, Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) will get 1,650 buses, and this includes 150 Volvo buses. The government wants to add over 3,000 new buses by next year, of which State would procure 1,500 buses from its exchequer,’’ he said.

He said a final decision was yet to be taken on BMTC hiring 1,500 buses from private operators.