Travelling to become smoother as Delhi will get 3K more buses by May

NEW DELHI: The Delhi government sources said that by May next year, the national capital will have 3,035 more buses, including 1,385 low floor AC buses and electric ones. The process of inducting 1,000 standard-floor non-AC

CNG cluster buses with hydraulic lifts, for differently-abled persons, will start this month and would be completed in February 2020, said senior officials of the transport department.

The government sources also informed that the process of bidding is on regarding including induction of 385 low-floor AC electric cluster buses. The state government also informed that the Delhi Cabinet, on July 11, approved the procurement of 1,000 low-floor AC buses by the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) and the process would be completed by April 2020. The officials said that 650 low-floor AC CNG cluster buses will hit Delhi and the process of procuring this would be completed by May 2020.

Delhi government is also going to open the tenders for electric buses that it had floated earlier. If the tender is awarded, the first batch of low-floor electric buses is expected to roll out by the end of this year or early next year. "In the first phase, we will open tenders for 375 electric buses under two clusters on August 2. The government plans to induct a total of 1,000 buses," a transport department official said.

He added, "These buses will be operating from the Rohini Sector 37 and Mundhela Kalan depots. These will become the first bus depots with e-charging facility and work for setting up that infrastructure has already started".

Meanwhile, The Delhi government wants to replace its struggling Hop-on Hop-off (HoHo) tourist bus service with a revamped system by purchasing 25 new buses with partially open decks along with the addition of new routes and reduction in the price of the service to under Rs 200 –less than half the current fare. The new service, likely to be started by the end of the year, will also introduce inter-change stations to provide a flexible public transport network for tourists visiting different sites across the Capital. "The existing HoHo buses have

only a single route which touches all the major tourist destinations. We realised that it limited the options for many tourists as they are not able to customise their itinerary. While some might want to go to the museums, other would rather see heritage sites,"

said a senior official involved in the project.