The Delhi High Court on Wednesday directed the heavy vehicle manufacturers, Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland, to file affidavits stating when they would be able to complete the supply of low-floor buses to the Delhi Government.
A Division Bench of the Court comprising Justice A. P. Shah and Justice S. Muralidhar passed the direction to the two contractors that had been given contract by the State Government to supply low-floor buses when the counsel for the Tata Motors submitted that they had rescheduled the time to supply these vehicles.
The Government had promised the High Court that it will phase out Blueline buses from the Capital’s roads by March 2010.
However, the counsel for the Government submitted that the two contractors had so far been able to supply only 666 buses and a hundred-odd buses were likely to be added to the fleet soon.
The Government requires a total of 3,125 low-floor buses to replace Blueline buses.
Pulling up the Government for the delay in implementation of the phase-out plan, the Court gave it more time for installation of the Global Positioning System (GPS) in these buses.
On a direction by the Court, the Government had in 2007 submitted a plan to phase out Blueline buses and bring in its place a new-look passenger-friendly public transport system with all buses fitted with electronic gadgets for safe driving and tracking devices.
Under the new transport policy, private buses will be operated by corporate and cooperative bodies under the integrated management of a Delhi Government company. The two entities will run buses on all existing routes that will be grouped in different clusters, and each operator will not be allotted more than one cluster.
Taking suo motu note of the increase in cases of accidents involving Blueline buses, the Court has been hearing the matter for a long time.
