Court rejects CRRI report panning BRT
24 July 2012 2:27 AM GMT
The city government on Monday rejected a report of Central Road Research Institute’s (CRRI) criticising the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor here in the Delhi High Court saying that it is ‘unconstitutional’ and ‘irrational’ as it ignored the rights of common commuters.
Appearing before the bench of Acting Chief Justice A K Sikri and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw, senior advocate K T S Tulsi argued that CRRI has violated the concept of equality guaranteed under the Indian Constitution by considering the problems of car users but not the bus users.
‘It is a completely irrational approach. Their concern is car users but not the bus users. For them, a poor person is not entitled to travel fast. The value of time for poor is less important for them. Bus users are non persons to them as they have not taken the opinion of the bus users while conducting the trial run for mixed vehicles on the corridor.” the senior lawyer said while filing an affidavit before the bench after analysing the report, submitted by CRRI recently.
The lawyer also argued that the research institute while preparing the report has taken into account only the number of occupants in a car but ignored the number of occupants in a bus which is much larger.
To this argument, the bench, which asked a CRRI official to brief the court about the difficulties on the corridor, said, ‘The report does not mean that and let us not jump to that conclusion. A balance has to be drawn’.
Claiming that the purpose of BRT project was served as the buses move faster on the lane marked for it, the lawyer argued that the object of the BRT project was to provide comfortable and faster public transport so that the private vehicle users may get induced to switch to public transport system. Pursuant to the court’s earlier order on a PIL seeking scrapping of the BRT corridor, the CRRI has said, ‘The result of the experimental trial run conducted on the corridor (Ambedkar Nagar and Moolchand) reiterated the fact that allowing other vehicles to ply on the earmarked lane for buses yielded better benefits for the road users compared to BRT situation.’
In its affidavit, the Transport Department said it had conceptualised the project in an international workshop in 2002 and the same was recommended by various agencies including Rail India Technical and Economical Services (RITES) and IIT Delhi.
Appearing before the bench of Acting Chief Justice A K Sikri and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw, senior advocate K T S Tulsi argued that CRRI has violated the concept of equality guaranteed under the Indian Constitution by considering the problems of car users but not the bus users.
‘It is a completely irrational approach. Their concern is car users but not the bus users. For them, a poor person is not entitled to travel fast. The value of time for poor is less important for them. Bus users are non persons to them as they have not taken the opinion of the bus users while conducting the trial run for mixed vehicles on the corridor.” the senior lawyer said while filing an affidavit before the bench after analysing the report, submitted by CRRI recently.
The lawyer also argued that the research institute while preparing the report has taken into account only the number of occupants in a car but ignored the number of occupants in a bus which is much larger.
To this argument, the bench, which asked a CRRI official to brief the court about the difficulties on the corridor, said, ‘The report does not mean that and let us not jump to that conclusion. A balance has to be drawn’.
Claiming that the purpose of BRT project was served as the buses move faster on the lane marked for it, the lawyer argued that the object of the BRT project was to provide comfortable and faster public transport so that the private vehicle users may get induced to switch to public transport system. Pursuant to the court’s earlier order on a PIL seeking scrapping of the BRT corridor, the CRRI has said, ‘The result of the experimental trial run conducted on the corridor (Ambedkar Nagar and Moolchand) reiterated the fact that allowing other vehicles to ply on the earmarked lane for buses yielded better benefits for the road users compared to BRT situation.’
In its affidavit, the Transport Department said it had conceptualised the project in an international workshop in 2002 and the same was recommended by various agencies including Rail India Technical and Economical Services (RITES) and IIT Delhi.
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