With a view to provide better and convenient public transport facilities to women during implementation of odd even scheme in the city, the Delhi government has decided to reserve 50 percent seats of its 2,000 additional buses besides allowing double shifts for auto drivers. The government is in talk to rope in 6,000 additional buses from private operators who are generally engaged with schools.
A high-level meeting chaired by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also decided to mark “separate bus lanes” across all arterial roads in the city by December 25. Motorists obstructing movement of buses in these lanes will be penalised.
The meeting was attended by all Delhi ministers, top officials of traffic police and representatives of all departments and agencies concerned.
“We will run 6,000 buses as per cluster system. The drivers will be hired by the bus owners while DTC will arrange for conductors and decide the route,” Delhi Transport Minister Gopal Rai said.
The 4,000 buses will be “general” buses where some seats will be reserved for women commuters while 2,000 buses to be taken from 2,700 schools after their duty hours will have 50 per cent seats reserved for women, he said.
The Delhi government is also in talks with the Railways for improvement frequency of trains running between Delhi and nearby cities of NCR, said Jain, adding the Delhi Metro has assured the government to operate metro services at peak frequency from January 1 when the odd-even scheme will be rolled out for 15 days, initially.
“We will launch the first stage of Puchho app tomorrow (Friday) which will help people hire autos for commuting in case they are covered by the odd-even scheme,” he said.
The app will be launched for public on December 25.