DTC claims to meet the mandate of having a minimum of 10% disabled-friendly buses
After the Delhi High Court stayed the awarding of the tender for the procurement of 1,000 standard-floor buses under the 'Cluster Scheme', the Delhi Cabinet is likely to meet to discuss the issue on Friday. The Delhi government's transport department has prepared a note for being "allowed" to procure these as they already meet the mandate of having a minimum of 10 per cent disabled-friendly buses, sources said.
According to a Supreme Court order issued last year, all states must have 10 per cent of its state transport bus fleet disabled-friendly. The Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC), at present, runs around 3,700 low-floor buses that fulfil the disabled-friendly criterion, while there are as many as 1,648 standard-floor buses which ply under the 'Cluster Scheme'.
"At present, we already meet the minimum requirement of disabled-friendly buses. We are also going to procure 1,000 low-floor electric buses, which will take the number of disabled-friendly buses way past the minimum percentage. It is important to have more buses added to the fleet currently, so we are going to urge the Cabinet to allow us to get standard-floor buses," they said.
Of the DTC's 3,700 buses purchased during Commonwealth Games (CWG) in 2010, over 20 per cent are past their shelf-life of eight years and were supposed to be withdrawn from roads this year. According to a response filed by the government in the court last year, it stated that around 11,000 more buses are required to cater to the city's average daily demand.
The department also plans to raise the issue of high cost of maintenance of low-floor buses, which was one of the major reasons for the DTC not being able to procure more buses over the past five years. Only last year, the Delhi government scrapped the annual maintenance clause (AMC) from tenders, which required manufacturers to pay for the upkeep of buses.
"The maintenance cost of low-floor buses is very high and currently the need is to add to the depleting fleet. The bidders last time had gone overboard asking for Rs 80 per kilometre even though the profit is only around Rs 35 per kilometre," they said.
The procurement of these 1,000 buses is significant as this would have been after four years that new buses were going to be added to the state-run fleet.
WHY IT'S IMP...
- Transport dept plans to raise the issue of high cost of maintenance of low-floor buses, which was one of the major reasons for not being able to procure buses
- The procurement is significant as this would have been after four years that new buses will be added
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