Delhi Transport minister Gopal Rai on Sunday announced that the passenger carrying capacity of the DTC fleet has been increased from 48 lakh to 64 lakh in order to ensure additional public transport facilities to commuters on Monday. The minister also emphasised that the government is fully prepared to handle the situation which will arise on the first working day of the odd even scheme on Monday. Delhi Metro will carry 32 lakh passengers from Monday onwards, which is a considerable leap from 28 lakh.
“Someone had posted a tweet in my Twitter account in which the person has informed that some of the miscreants will try to disrupt the odd-even scheme in the national Capital on Monday. The miscreants will reportedly be coming from Meerut in order to disturb this scheme. I am not sure about the authenticity of this tweet, but I will meet Delhi Police commissioner BS Bassi for the deployment of additional police force in order to ensure the law and order situation,” said Gopal Rai.
He added: “200 teams of traffic police have been deployed thus far with another additional 100 to be fielded on roads to monitor from Monday onwards. We will place video cameras at different locations to identify the odd-even vehicle violators. Around 567 challans have been issued so far to people violating the rules out of which 348 auto rickshaws were also challaned.”
Rai said that the government had prepared for implementation of the scheme on day one and now it is the “responsibility” of people to ensure that violations do not take place on Monday.
He further said that there will special squads of around 100 buses which will be divided in four zones (25 each). These buses can be called on by the commuters in case of jam or poor services of buses at those particular areas. People can contact the help line number 011-41400400 for assistance.
The minister asked people to carpool in order to avoid inconvenience. He also asked people to download the ‘PoochO app’.