Fleet of 1,000 low-floor DTC buses to hit national capital by December 2019
NEW DELHI: Ending the tough path, a fleet of 1,000 DTC buses will arive in Delhi in the month of December, out of this 500 will be AC and 500 non AC buses. According to the officials, the tendering process has been successful therefore the processing of these buses are on. "The DTC board approved the proposal in March this year and this time we have decided to outsource the AMC (annual maintenance contract)," said an official.
According to the officials, due to the Model Code of Conduct the procurement proedcure was delayed. "We are working on this project and by the end of this year, the buses will start coming," said an official. Meanwhile, the Delhi Cabinet approved a proposal to add 1,000 low-floor AC electric buses to the national capital's public transport fleet, claiming to be the first city in the country having a large number of such vehicles. The electric buses are also likely to come by this year. The transport department recently opened bids to run low-floor buses on three different route clusters and shortlisted companies on the basis of their technical and financial capabilities and rates offered. The department will soon put up the details for the consideration of Delhi Cabinet and, once approved, the agreement will be signed with the private players.
The official also said that the government wanted to buy non-AC buses because there are many passengers who prefer non-AC buses because the tickets are much cheaper. Earlier, the plans of procurement were hit as despite the issuance of tenders, there were no buyers. According to applications filed by the transport department in the SC, a 2008 tender for 750 non-AC, semi- low-floor buses and 250 AC semi-low-floor buses was cancelled as the rates quoted by Ashok Leyland were on the "higher side". 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 minibuses also ply on 124 routes.
As per the government's own estimates, Delhi needs a fleet of 11,000 buses while the actual number on the roads is around 5,500. The government hopes to meet the shortfall partially by 2019. It plans to run these buses at a frequency of four to five minutes on trunk routes. Announcing his government's plan to make travel in public transport free for women, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal earlier said that Delhi would have another 3,000 buses in the next 10-12 months, which will take care of the increased ridership.
