About Neeta Tours and Travels in 19, Saraswati Nivas, Opp. Gokul Hotel, Borivali (W)., Mumbai

The Mumbai-Pune expressway is one of the most successful models showcasing how road transport can be more effective than other modes. Gone are the days when you had no other choice but to travel by train. Today, there are a few hundred buses traversing from Mumbai to Pune, and back every 5-10 minutes. With the availability of good roads and improved transport efficiency, the travelling public feel more comfortable. Further, good roads/expressways motivate the operators to offer more facilities for the travelling public by improving the running efficiency.

In 2002-03, when the Mumbai-Pune expressway was commissioned, Volvo utilized the opportunity to the utmost and virtually transformed the travel system with its B7R buses. And if there is one operator who used this opportunity to the maximum, it is none other than Neeta Travels. The names Volvo and Neeta have become synonymous with luxury bus travel on the Mumbai-Pune expressway.

But how did this transformation happen? Mr. Sunil Savla of Neeta Travels says it all started in 2002-03 when the Mumbai-Pune expressway first opened up and Neeta started the inter-city service with just eight Volvo buses. The customer response was so encouraging that the company kept adding more buses every year, and today it has a fleet of over 120 Volvo buses.

Neeta Travels had a small beginning but has had a big growth. It was started in the 1980s with a single car for tourist passengers. The company bought its first bus in 1986, and it was actually a second-hand bus. It was in 1992 that Neeta bought its first new bus, a Tata luxury bus. In the next 10 years, by 2002, it added 50 buses to its fleet, most of which are Tata AC and non-AC buses.

Mr. Sunil Savla said, with the launch of Volvo buses in the Indian market in 2002, and the opening up of the Mumbai-Pune expressway, we identified an opportunity to introduce Volvo bus service on the expressway which covered the distance in just two hours and 30 minutes.

This was the real turning point for the company which kept doubling the fleet every year, which has now grown to 150 buses, of which 120 are Volvo B7R buses, 10 are Volvo multi-axle buses, 15 Tata Hispano buses and the balance 10 Mercedes buses.

Neeta has the reputation of being the first to introduce any new product in the bus segment. Be it the Volvo B7R when it was launched in Mumbai, the Volvo multi-axle bus, the Mercedes Bus and the Tata Hispano luxury bus launched in 2008. The company has been a pioneer in introducing the latest product and technology in the market.

In fact, when Volvo launched multi-axles buses with a price tag of Rs. 85 lakhs, there were doubts if the Indian market is ready for such a product. But Neeta has already got a fleet of 10 multi-axle buses and plans to add more multi-axle buses to his fleet in the future. Even from the customer side there is more demand for multi-axle as it offers better ride comfort for the passenger as there are two axles in the rear.

According to Mr. Sunil, Neeta now operates services across the whole of Maharashtra and parts of Gujarat and will start soon services to Bangalore and Mangalore. This will mark Neeta’s entry in the South which is traditionally a major market for people travelling by road.

Neeta also made an entry into the hospitality industry in 2004 by starting a hotel in Shirdi. Today, Neeta has seven hotels in Shirdi, Mahabaleshwar and Mumbai-Pune expressway and another three new projects are coming.

Mr. Sunil says: “We would like to provide complete solution for our customer – travel, accommodation and tour operation”. Neeta does a turnover of Rs. 60 crores per annum in both the travel and hotel industry together.



Bus operators like Neeta have been proactive in adopting latest technology and products and have transformed the bus travel industry. With better road network and improved connectivity between metros, the bus travel industry will witness exponential growth in the future.