The Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) “failed” to recover losses from its maintenance contractor for 17 AC buses that were gutted in fires in 2015 resulting in total loss of ₹2.82 crore to the public transporter up to June 2017, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has said in a report.
The CAG report, which was tabled in the Delhi Assembly on Tuesday, noted that under a contract signed in October 2008 between the “Delhi Transport Corporation and Tata Motors Limited”, 2,682 low-floor buses were supplied during 2007-11 with responsibility of annual maintenance till 7,50,000 km.
“Due to inadequacy in contract management coupled with delayed action attributed to DTC management, it could not recover the losses from Tata Motors Limited (TML) resulting from 17 burnt buses with depreciated value of ₹5.86 crore,” the report said.
It also observed that “due to non-availability of 17 buses, DTC has been suffering an annual loss of contribution of ₹1.13 crore and total loss up to June 2017 was ₹2.82 crore. Not ensuring insurance cover for 2,682 buses also means undue benefit was extended to TML equivalent to cost of insurance cover.”
The report also noted that the Delhi urban development department has not formed a mechanism of coordination among agencies to prepare a plan for developing a road network to cope with increasing number of vehicles in the city.
According to the report tabled by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, there was also no effective mechanism for citizens to report their grievances regarding specific roads to the agencies concerned for redressal.
“Multiple agencies were responsible for Delhi road network. The urban development department did not establish any mechanism to coordinate the efforts of these agencies to prepare a perspective plan, lack of which hindered the effective planning and coordination in developing Delhi road network in a phased manner to cope up with ever increasing population of vehicles in the city,” it stated.
