While Delhi Metro will cover a 300km route by 2016, the fact is that governments over the years have neglected public transport despite allocating 20-25% of the annual budget to the sector. It got Rs 3,372 crore in 2012, and Rs 3,876 crore last year.
Schemes get launched only to flounder—the cluster scheme and DTC's low-floor buses are examples. Meanwhile, the number of private vehicles is increasing every year and less than 50% of the people use public transport.
Of DTC's 5,216 buses, 3,781 are low-floors and the rest standard-floor buses from the old fleet that are fit to be scrapped as they have long outlived their specified service life of eight years or five lakh kilometres. Most of the standard-floor buses were bought in 2001, and some in 2003.
DTC has been inviting tenders for low-floor buses for over a year now, with no result. While funds are available under the JNNURM scheme, vendors are said to be keeping away because of a stringent maintenance contract. The corporation has now decided to get 1,380 semi-low-floor buses instead, while 345 AC buses are also awaited.
The slow take-up of the cluster bus scheme is also to blame for the current shortage. In 2010, the government launched the scheme for private operators to run buses on all routes at a metered rate. While there should have been 4,400 cluster buses by now, there are only 1,000. The transport department and DIMTS—the agency that runs this scheme—claim this is because of a paucity of depot space. The transport department has even handed over land meant for DTC to the cluster bus operators but that hasn't solved the problem. Of the 17 clusters planned, only nine have been awarded and eight are functional.
Increasing the numbers of DTC and cluster buses is not the only measure needed to improve public transport in Delhi. Experts say low-floor buses, while aesthetic, take up a lot of road space and in a congested city, standard or small buses run in larger numbers will serve better. Former Delhi Metro chief, E Sreedharan, favours running such buses at a high frequency.
Low-floor buses have also been plagued by breakdowns and malfunctioning components. While DTC is considering introducing smaller buses on some routes on a pilot basis, talk of getting buses from China and Poland is also in the air, but nothing has happened so far.
Smaller and more maneuverable buses are expected to be safer. In January alone, DTC buses have been involved in four—traffic police claim seven—fatal accidents. The number of accidents involving low-floor buses has been increasing since the time they were introduced in 2010.
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