The Opposition BJP on Wednesday accused the Delhi government of having perpetrated a scam in the maintenance of older buses on the fleet of the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC).
A delegation of BJP MLAs, led by the Leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Assembly, met the Chief Vigilance Commission (CVC) chairman Suresh N. Patel and submitted a memorandum demanding an inquiry into the matter. The CVC chairman has assured the delegation of an inquiry, Mr. Bidhuri said.
“The memorandum states that since the Aam Aadmi Party government came to power in Delhi, not a single new bus was purchased in Delhi. Now the situation is that 3,760 buses of DTC’s fleet have crossed their age,” Mr. Bidhuri said.
“Driving these buses is very dangerous from the safety point of view. The Delhi government has done another act of looting the exchequer: the AMC contract of ₹500 crore has been given in the name of maintenance of 1,000 old DTC buses,” he alleged.
If the government had bought 1,000 new non-AC buses, Mr. Bidhuri said, their cost would have come to ₹500 crore, but this amount was being spent only on the maintenance of old buses. He further alleged that preparations were under way to give a contract for the maintenance of the remaining 2,600 buses under the DTC as well.
“In this way, about ₹1,800 crore is being spent for three years only on the maintenance of old buses which are not running on the roads. With this amount, 3,600 new buses could be purchased for the next 10 years,” Mr. Bidhuri added.
He along with BJP MLAs Vijender Gupta, Mohan Singh Bisht, Om Prakash Sharma, Jitendra Mahajan, Anil Bajpai, Ajay Mahawar, Abhay Verma and Delhi BJP spokesperson Harihar Raghuvanshi were part of the delegation.
