To provide international level bus service to the commuters, Delhi government has assured the Delhi High Court – where the case ‘about the fate of blueline buses’ has been pending – to replace the ‘killer’ buses with comfortable public sector buses but in a phased manner.
Expressing its vulnerability, the Delhi government which had earlier assured the HC to pull out the blueline buses from the road soon has now said that it would take some times and government can not force the private operators to scrap all the buses from the road due to lack of DTC buses and drivers.
However, it has assured the Court to reduce the blueline buses and to increase the modern low-floor and semi-low floor ACs and Non-ACs buses for providing world-class service to the public without analysing the matter of loss and profit.
In the move to follow the Delhi HC’s order- “replace the blueline busses with 4500 new and better Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) buses” - DTC has rolled out only 391 low floor buses comprises air conditioned and non-air conditioned buses in the capital and estimated to run 2500 low and semi-low floor buses across the Delhi by the mid of 2009, as per sources.
To operate the new fleet of buses, DTC is seeking to recruit 4,000 new ‘well’ and ‘experienced’ drivers at daily wage basis by the end of September, as per official sources. “The new fleet of buses are extremely expensive and needs special care, thus we need well-record and experienced drivers,” said a DTC official.
For this, DTC the operating agency that has 5,000 permanent drivers and 17,00 working drivers on contract basis- had conducted the exam of Delhi Subordinate Services Selection Board (DSSSB) in April this year, and would hire 4,000 drivers among the qualifier that is expected to complete the process by September end.
Moreover, to cut the chances of accident DTC has also been mulling to adopt Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System (DIMTS). Under DIMTS, the transport department has decided to establish 43 corridors over 575 km of roads in the phased manner. The first phase of the project is targeted to achieve by 2010 before the common wealth games.
The transport department has identified the 657 routes across the Delhi and arranged it into 17 clusters based on the overlapping bus route. The clusters where more than five or more routes overlap would be included in single route. The first phase of 17 clusters has been schedule to begin from this September. After scrutinising the success of first stage, the remaining 16 clusters would be finalised, sources said.
The private operators will operate the bus service in each cluster along with the DTC with the sharing ratio of 40:60. The transport department would sort out those operators who have ‘clean’ and ‘good track record’. Only one operator will provide the bus service in single route until the entire route have been allocated for all the buses.
The ticketing system in the private buses will also be under the third party, as per transport department sources informed, that would deposit all the money in the Delhi Transport’s Account department from where the operates would collect their share.
Out of 32 routes in the first cluster DTC will run 295 buses while private players will run 270 buses including 20% air-conditioned buses which fares would be same with that of DTC buses.
The new fleet of DTC low floor buses is enabled with Global Positioning System (GPS) and automatic ticketing system, which is more comfortable for the commuters.
|
|
Read More: Delhi
Comments:
