Govt clears five depots to park 895 new buses

NEWDELHI: The Delhi government will open five depots by the end of this year to accommodate 895 new buses in a bid to strengthen public transport in the city.

The project, estimated to cost ₹134 crore, was approved by the government’s expenditure finance committee (EFC) on Wednesday in a meeting chaired by deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia. These depots will come up in Ghumanhera, Burari, Bawana, Mundela Kalan and East Vinod Nagar with a total land area of about 35 acres.

The move comes at a time when the Delhi government has to meet the target of augmenting its bus fleet to 10,000 by December this year. This target was notified under the comprehensive action plan to curb pollution in national capital region (NCR) by the Centre in January last month.

Currently, the city has only 5,391 buses and the Delhi government in various court cases has often cited lack of land for parking new buses as the reason for not procuring them. However, the government has now expedited the process of bringing 2,000 new buses and they are likely to be rolled out by October.

“After Wednesday’s decision, the Delhi government will be ready with space to park the 2,000 new buses that will be coming by the end of this year. Today, space for 895 new buses has been finalised. Parking for the remaining 105 is still being discussed,” a government official said.

A transport official said that once these depots are ready, the government will be left with land requirement to park only 1,100 buses as some unused land is also available with the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC). “If the government gets Millennium Depot then this need too would be fulfilled and we would have space to park all 10,000 buses. Procurement of the remaining 2,609 buses can then be initiated,” the official said.

Depot space for 1,000 of the 2,000 buses was identified in January. Of these, 100 will be added to Rewla Khanpur depot, 250 to Dwarka Sector 22 depot, 120 to Kharkhari Nahar, 90 to Bawana Sector 1 depot, 160 to Rani Khe- NEWDELHI: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday threatened to stay the AAP government’s move to procure 1,000 low-floor electric buses instead of standard-floor CNG buses, if it does not have an action plan to provide parking space for the vehicles.

“Will these 1,000 buses fly in air,” a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar asked the Delhi government and the Delhi Transport Corporation, after noting that purchase orders were issued without finalising a plan for parking space.

ra-i and 140 each to Rani Khera-ii and Rani Khera-iii.

The government is also planning to buy 200 electric buses with the money it collected as environment compensation charge from commercial vehicles and also with assistance from the Centre’s FAME India (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric and Hybrid Vehicles in India) scheme.

The court demanded a timeline from the Delhi government on its move to procure the 1,000 low-floor electric buses instead of the standard-floor CNG buses proposed earlier.

Stressing on the need for low-floor buses, the bench said: “We will not let this exclusivity (against handicapped persons) to persist in Delhi.”

On an apparent lack of a plan to park the buses proposed to be procured, the court said: “We are unable to understand what would be the fate of these buses.” Under the scheme, aimed to promote large-scale adoption of EVS (electric vehicles) in multimodal public transport, the Centre is selecting cities having one million plus population and is offering it ₹105 crore as grant.

The electric buses will be parked at the depots in East Vinod Nagar and Bawana which will be upgraded with charging facilities.