Three multi-level bus depots to come up in Capital soon

New Delhi: The Capital will soon see three multi-level bus depots coming up, a project on which Delhi's Transport Department is scheduled to hold a meeting on by September 25, according to officials aware of the project's progress.

"The Okhla bus depot has been finalised and we are looking at two other locations in the city to add to it as well," a government official in the Transport Department said.

The first of the three is expected to come up at Okhla, where officials have said 15.2 acres of land is available at the DTC workshop, of which 5 acres have been earmarked for cluster scheme buses to surface park. The remaining portion of the land is where the proposed multi-level bus depot is expected to be erected with maintenance facilities for 12-metre low-floor standard CNG-run buses.

As of now, there are around 6,500 buses in the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) and cluster scheme fleet with new vehicles being inducted every month to achieve the Delhi government's goal of having a combined fleet of 11,000 buses. As a result, such bus depots are being looked at as a possible solution to an impending space-crunch issue.

The first, second and third floors of the Okhla bus depot are expected to provide a combined space of 82,456 square metres, which will be purposed for parking buses and allied facilities. As per initial plans, the fourth floor of the depot has been marked for "mixed-use", where later warehouses, storage areas, offices and transit accommodation facilities can be built.

The Delhi Government is looking at ways in which the multilevel bus depot can be made commercially self-sustainable, the transport department official added. "The project is set to take off by end of October with commercial activities also being added so that the government doesn't have to fund it and it can maintain itself," the official said on account of anonymity.