NEW DELHI: The Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) and the AAP government on Tuesday assured the High Court here that no contract for standard floor buses would be awarded till May 23 in the backdrop of objections that these buses are not disabled-friendly. The assurance was given as a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar appeared inclined to stay the entire tender floated on March 15 for procurement of 1,000 standard floor buses (SFBs).
The court was of the view that exclusion of disabled persons from accessing public transport was "glaring on the face of it" as the SFBs were not easily accessible by handicapped persons and the elderly. Taking note of the views of the bench, the DTC and the Delhi government assured it that the contract under the tender, which was opened on May 10, would not be awarded till the next date of hearing on May 23.
The court said that DTC and the government would be bound by the statement. The order came on a fresh PIL moved by Nipun Malhotra seeking setting aside of the March 15 tender. Advocate Jai Dehadrai, appearing for Malhotra, said the tender was in violation of earlier orders of the court as well as undertakings were given by DTC that it will not go ahead with the procurement of SFBs. The lawyer said that the DTC and the government were going ahead with the procurement despite agreeing that low floor buses (LFBs) were safer and more efficient than SFBs.
DTC in an affidavit has said only the older SFBs were unsafe and inefficient in comparison to the LFBs and the new ones that it was going to procure would be as good as the LFBs. However, the new SFBs would not be able to cater to people in wheelchairs, the transport corporation has admitted in its affidavit. Meanwhile, advocate Aman Panwar, appearing for Congress leader Ajay Maken, told the court that the proposed procurement was also in violation of a Ministry of Urban Development specification that public transport buses in Delhi need to have automatic transmission.