DTC Board okays purchase of 1,250 low-floor CNG buses

New Delhi: The Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) Board approved the tender to procure 1,250 BS-VI compliant air conditioner CNG-propelled low floor buses after almost a wait of ten years.

The Capital will also have 700 electric buses and the delivery of which will start in May next year, a senior official in the Transport Department of the Delhi government told Millennium Post.

The original proposal was for 1,000 such buses, which was amended to increase the number of buses to 1,250 by the board a week ago.

"In May, the slot of buses will start delivering in batches of 160 buses every 45 days. The entire batch of 1,250 buses will be delivered by October 2021," the senior official said.

Along with the low-floor A/C CNG buses, a tender for 300 electric buses was also floated in the first week of December. The proposal for 400 Cluster electric buses has been sent to the Finance Department for approval for the tender which is expected to be floated next week.

After getting its approval, a resolution will be made and submitted to the transport department and after completing the required processes, it will be sent to the Cabinet for final approval.

All the buses will be environment-friendly and BS-VI compliant and will be equipped with facilities like air conditioning, CCTV cameras and panic buttons with speakers for women's safety and will also be disabled-friendly with fitted lifts.

As of now, the DTC fleet comprises 3,762 low-floor CNG buses and with the addition of 1,250 new buses along with the 300 electric ones, the fleet will increase to 5,312 buses. Similarly, there are currently 2,839 Cluster buses here and with 575 electric buses being added, it will increase to 3,414.

Out of the 575 electric Cluster buses, 190 will be delivered at the Burari depot, 110

at the Mundela Kalan depot and 275 will be delivered at the Rohini depot.