Delhi cabinet approves tender for 1K cluster buses

NEW DELHI: The Delhi cabinet on Tuesday approved a tender for purchase of 1,000 non-AC, standard floor cluster buses to serve the city's outlying areas, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said. The buses are expected to start arriving by August and all buses will be delivered by year-end, he added.

"The cabinet approved the Transport Department's proposal for Request for Qualification & Proposal & Draft Concession Agreement for inviting bids for engagement of 1,000 cluster buses," said Sisodia. He said it was proposed to add 100 buses in Rewla Khanpur Depot, 250 buses in Dwarka Sector 22, 120 buses in Kharkhari Nahar, 90 buses in Bawana Sector 1, 160 buses in Rani Khera-I, 140 buses each in Rani Khera-II & Rani Khera-III.

"These buses will be the non-AC and standard floor," he said. It is estimated to have these buses on roads within a maximum period of eight months, he added.

Sisodia said DIMTS has been appointed the consultant for the engagement of these 1,000 buses. The Delhi Transport, Minister Kailash Gahlot, urged the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi to provide spaces to keep more buses.

"We have repeatedly asked L-G to arrange space for us to make bus terminuses in the city which is necessary to keep more buses but he has been always reluctant to this," alleged Gahlot. The Minister said the government was ready to float tenders for more buses but there was no space to keep them and that's why the government will not do that till it did not receive proper space to make bus shelters.

The DTC has a fleet of 3,944 buses while the DIMTS (Delhi Integrated Multimodal Transit System) runs 1,634 buses under the cluster scheme, as per the Transport department statistics. The combined strength of around 5,600 buses covers nearly 75 per cent of the identified routes in the city. A total of 799 mini buses also ply on 124 routes, according to the statistics.

This decision came in the time when reportedly the ridership of DTC has gone down drastically. Recently, a study by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) showed that DTC's daily average ridership declined by over 35 per cent between 2012-13 and 2016. From 47 lakh in 2012-13, it dropped to 30 lakh by the end of 2016, the CSE report said. As per latest available DTC statistics, about 30 lakh passengers are carried daily, of which a mere 14 lakh (45 per cent) are ticketed. The rest (16 lakh) use passes, it noted. The DTC official noted that in 2012, DTC had nearly 6,200 buses.