More buses, Metro to meet the rush: Rai

In view of the Delhi government’s decision to restrict plying of vehicles on alternate days, Transport Minister Gopal Rai on Saturday said that the public transport system would be strengthened by introducing more buses and frequency of Metro trains to accomodate the rush.

Rai said the DMRC and Delhi Traffic Police will be approached in this regard and a strategy worked out.

“I have called a meeting with officials from Transport Department, Public Works Department (PWD), Delhi Traffic Police and environment department on how to execute the government’s decision,” Rai said.

A senior government official said that transport department does not have sufficient staff to execute the new decison on its own and it will approach Traffic Police for cooperation with the government.

Sources in DTC said that it is difficult for the state-owned bus authority to include more buses in its fleet.

“DTC has been trying to buy around 2,000 new buses for alomost two years. We are still trying to buy new buses despite the fact that we recently floated global tenders,” they said.

At present, we have a fleet of 4,500 buses, including 1,275 AC-floor buses and 2,500 non-AC floor buses, which is not sufficient to accomodate the increasing numbers of passengers.

“In view of government’s ‘Odd and Even formula’, government will ask DMRC to increase numbers of train coaches to accomodate crowd of passengers,” Rai said.

Sources said the government will also approach city’s auto associations and request them to run autotrickshaws late in the night so that people won’t need to go out with their cars. As per government’s decision, it will also shut down Badarpur Thermal power station and will move the National Green Tribunal to close the Dadri power plant which falls in Uttar Pradesh.

The AAP government will also carry out a massive plantation drive along all arterial roads across the city to curb spread of dust and ensure vacuum cleaning of roads by the PWD from April 1.

The government is also mulling allowing movement of trucks only after 11 pm as they slow down overall vehicular movement which was pointed out to be a major contributing factor to pollution from vehicular emission.