Hot on the heels of a low-floor Delhi Transport Corporation bus developing a mechanical snag on Outer Ring Road over the weekend causing smoke to emanate, yet another bus belonging to the newly-acquired fleet stalled mid-way in Lajpat Nagar on Monday after sparks were noticed in its rear portion.
The bus, plying between Noida and Dhaula Kuan, had reached near Moolchand Hospital around 3-30 p.m. when a passenger noticed sparks and alerted the driver. The driver opened the hydraulic gates and asked the passengers to get down. He then doused the sparks with a fire extinguisher. No one was injured.
A call was also made to the Delhi Fire Service and a fire tender reached the spot.
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In a press statement, Tata Motors clarified that the sparks were caused due to short-circuit in the battery cable and no damage was caused to the engine. The bus was later towed away to Sukhdev Vihar depot and precautionary checks conducted on it ruled out any other problem, said the statement.
Referring to the earlier incident involving another DTC low-floor bus on December 19, Tata Motors clarified that there was no problem with the braking system of the vehicle and denied that it had caught fire.
The driver was asked to complete the trip after the incident and when the bus reached the depot the braking system was dismantled as a precautionary measure.
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The statement said the driver had noticed smoke in the rear side of the bus in his left rear view mirror, but clarified that probably smoke from the silencer settled down near the tail pipe due to condensation on account of cold conditions and was misconceived as smoking due to a technical fault.
The statement said the company had started the process of a comprehensive check on all low-floor buses plying in the Capital and that there was no inherent manufacturing defect in the buses.