Low-floor Delhi bus catches fire; third incident in two days

In the third such incident in just two days, a low-floor DTC bus today caught fire in the national capital even as the city government has called for a high-level meeting tomorrow to discuss the spate of mishaps.

The incident took place at 9.20am in West Delhi's Sagarpur area, police said adding the rear tyre of the bus caught fire but the driver evacuated the passengers safely.

Fire tenders rushed to the spot and doused the blaze. Yesterday, two low-floor buses had caught fire in the national capital.

This is the sixth incident in the past 18 days, that a bus running on Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) has caught fire.

Delhi government has instituted an inquiry into yesterday's incidents and was probing the earlier mishaps too separately.

Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, yesterday said she has convened a high level review meeting on Monday to discuss the problems in the low floor buses. The Government had earlier warned Tata Motors of strong action if the company did not improve maintenance of the low floor buses.

State transport Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely had said the government was "very serious" about the problem and could consider cancelling the contract to supply the low floor buses.

As per the contract terms, Tata Motors which has provided about 800 such low-floor buses to the Delhi government, is responsible for maintenance of the fleet.