The Delhi Cabinet is likely to approve the addition of 2,000 new buses — 1,000 each to be run by the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) and the private cluster bus service — soon, with the proposals getting two crucial approvals recently.
The procurement of 1,000 standard-floor buses for the DTC and the engagement of 1,000 buses for the cluster scheme have been approved by the government’s Planning and Finance Department, according to officials.
Now, the Transport Department is expected to finalise a note and table it before the Cabinet soon.
Repeated attempts
When completed, the procurement of 1,000 new buses for the DTC would be the culmination of years-long attempt to strengthen public transport. The DTC currently has about 4,000 buses and has been trying to increase the number since 2012.
In 2013, the DTC floated a tender to procure 625 low-floor buses — 500 without air-conditioning and 125 with AC, as per official records.
While no bids were received for the AC buses, there was a single bid that was later found to be too expensive for the non-AC buses and the tender was annulled. Later that year, two tenders were floated for 1,380 standard-floor and 345 low-floor premium buses. These, too, did not work out. Another tender in 2014 also did not work out and was annulled.
Since the cost of annual maintenance contracts with the buses were driving up prices, the DTC this year decided that it will maintain the buses.
With that, the proposal for floating a global tender for 1,000 buses, at an expected cost of ₹330 crore, is likely to be presented to the Cabinet.
According to the plan, the buses will have in-built cameras and screens for security.
In addition, around 1,000 more buses, including 200 AC buses, will be added to the cluster scheme, which currently has 1,622 buses in operation on eight clusters.
