DELHI’ S BUS TRANSPORT IN JEOPARDY/ PEOPLE FED UP WITH INCREASED METRO FARE

The Delhi government of AAP have been doing appreciable job on health, education, water and to an extent on power tarriff front by giving various concessions to the Delhi electorates, particularly those hailing from the lower middle class and the lowest ebb of the society as being given to understand and had also raised its voice of dissent against the arbitrary rise in the metro fare issue including passing of a resolution for regularising the contractual and adhoc services of the teachers imparting education receiving lowest salaries, though the matter is stuck at central level.

But in the context of the public transport front especially providing comfortable and convenient mode of transport through DTC it has not come up to the expectations of the Delhi commuters, particularly those belonging to the common masses, the student community and service sectors. The irregular, tardy, poor and complacent DTC n cluster bus services have led to enhance the dependence of majority of the Delhi populace to travel by metro rails whose fare has already been increased manifold twice in just six months, beyond their reach to pay.

Sounds shocking and ironical that on the one hand the AAP leaders and the Delhi government create shortage of public transport and on the other hand vociferously shows its impressive public dissent against the BJP government at the centre. The fact of the matter is had the Delhi government or the chief minister been serious on this count the majority numbers of metro rail commuters would have shifted to Delhi Transport Corporation services after the DMRC’S arbitrary anti people fare hike.

Today, Delhi has no dearth of funds and a whopping sum of rupees 829 crores collected as green tax is already lying unutilized. Delhi requires about 11000 buses to adequately cope with the situation but the anguishing fact is that there are currently only 5445 buses out of which due to the shortage of staff or some buses being faulty the number gets further reduced. The condition of public transport in DELHI is quite pathetic requires an indepth overhaul.

However the Delhi government has now, after so much of hue and cry ordered for the supply of 500 battery operated buses, good from the environmental angle but their delievery will take at least more than a year and by that time the pollution level of Delhi will further go ahead and the metro fares would be further increased. The point is, what had been the the current government doing till date after having come to power in Delhi. All the DTC buses are the ones’ purchased during the previous Shiela Dikshit government and since then the Delhi’ s new AAP dispensation has not purchased a single bus despite knowing the fact that majority of the commuters of the lower echelons of the society can’t afford the metro fares in view of their meagre salaries and low level private jobs. Delhi has a population of 1.35 crores out of which more than sixty persons live in unauthorised colonies and Jhunggi Jhompri clusters and are the low paid employees working in petty private jobs. Therefore adequate and full fledged bus transport system with little or no hassles is the perfect need of the hour.

SUNIL NEGI