The Transport Department on Monday issued letters of acceptance to two city-based vendors, paving the way for engagement of 500 standard-floor buses to augment the Capital’s ailing State-run bus infrastructure.
Electric buses
This, even as government sources claimed, the Department was moving swiftly towards procuring 1,000 electric buses by the end of the year and tying up loose ends to float a tender in line with this objective over the next two months.
A senior official from the Department said the fleet of 500 standard-floor buses, replete with hydraulic lifts to aid accessibility for the differently abled, to be operated under the cluster model is expected to begin being rolled out from January 2019.
The Delhi Cabinet had on May 18 given in-principle approval for the engagement of 1,000 buses, to be operated under the cluster scheme, under which the city government bears the viability gap to meet the deficit between actual payment to be made to the concessionaire and revenue via fare collection.
HC nod
The development came hours after the Delhi High Court allowed the Delhi government to go ahead with procurement of 500 such vehicles, after dismissing a petition by differently abled rights activist Nipun Malhotra.
The Delhi government had earlier this month placed orders for procurement of 480 such buses after receiving the go-ahead for modalities related to their engagement under the cluster scheme by the Supreme Court on August 2.
“So grateful to the Honble Court for letting us finally bring 1000 buses to Delhi roads, with hydraulic lifts for wheelchair bound passengers. The Govt has already committed to procurement of only low floor buses in future. We can now keep our environmental commitments to our city [sic],” tweeted Transport Secretary-cum-Commissioner Varsha Joshi.
Mr. Malhotra had filed two Public Interest Litigation appeals (PILs) challenging the city government and the Delhi Transport Corporation’s decision to buy standard-floor buses instead of low-floor buses.
While dismissing Mr. Malhotra’s petition on Monday, a Bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V.K. Rao made it clear that standard-floor buses which are proposed to be procured should have hydraulic lifts for easy access to differently abled persons.
‘Installation of hydraulic lifts’
Transport Special Commissioner K.K. Dahiya said it will take nearly two months to instal hydraulic lifts aboard the additional fleet of buses.
“Factoring in a period two months for installation of hydraulic lifts, these vehicles should hit the streets starting January,” he said.
Meanwhile, government sources claimed the Department was moving towards finalising modalities related to creation of a proposed fleet of 1,000 e-buses by year-end.
“We are in the process of preparing a Request for Proposal [RFP] for the fleet. Two to three models of such vehicles are under consideration and the Department is actively preparing to float a tender for these vehicles by the end of the year,” a government source said.
The current fleet of the DTC includes 2,506 non-AC low-floor buses, 1,275 AC low-floor buses and 101 standard-floor vehicles. Around 1,648 buses are also operated under the cluster scheme by DIMTS, bringing the total number of public buses in Delhi to around 5,432 — a little over half the judicially mandated figure of 11,000.
Successful tenders for engagement of 1,034 non-AC and 260 AC buses under the cluster scheme had last been floated in January, 2011.
