Transport officers to ride public buses once a week
NEW DELHI: The Delhi government has asked all its senior transport officials to ride public buses at least once a week to promote a shift away from private vehicles to public transport and seek feedback from passengers in order to improve the city’s most popular transit system.
The move comes a day after the government inducted 150 electric buses into the city’s fleet, taking its strength to a record 7,200.
The order pertains to Group A and B officials of the transport department and Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC).
“In order to encourage the use and adoption of public transport system and to have feedback and ideas for further improvement of our public transport system, the officers of the transport department and DTC (both Group A & B) must take at least one bus journey per week and provide their feedback…,” said the order issued by Neeraj Bharti, special commissioner (transport), on Wednesday.
State transport minister Kailash Gahlot kicked off the new practice on Wednesday, interacting with passengers on a few of the newly launched e-buses.
On Tuesday, when the e-buses were rolled out by chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, Gahlot, chief secretary Naresh Kumar, additional chief secretary Satya Gopal and transport commissioner Ashish Kundra travelled on one of the buses from Indraprastha depot to Raj Ghat depot.
“It has been the endeavour of the Delhi government to provide safe, affordable, convenient, and an efficient public transport system with the objective to decongest traffic as well as reduce vehicular pollution in Delhi. There is already a fleet of 7,000-plus buses operated by the transport department of Delhi and, recently, lowfloor electric buses (e-bus) are also being added to the fleet of the DTC (Delhi Transport Corporation) and cluster buses,” the order added.
After every ride, officers have been asked to file their findings, on aspects such as general cleanliness and maintenance of buses; availability of marshal on the bus; behaviour of driver and conductor, observation of bus lane discipline by the driver, stopping the bus at designated bus stop, issue of over speeding or dangerous driving or overtaking by the driver and bus availability on time.
“There is no other way to constantly improve, than from the feedback we give ourselves. It is expected that such an initiative will spread the message that shifting to sustainable public transport is a lifestyle change for betterment of health of citizens and environment,” Gahlot said on Wednesday.
The DTC and cluster buses together carry about 4.2 million people every day, while the Delhi Metro carries about 2.3 million passengers. Delhi currently has a bus fleet of over 7,205, including both DTC and cluster buses.
There are at least 10 million registered vehicles in Delhi and in addition to these, the city sees millions of vehicles coming in or crossing from neighbouring cities.
Subsidy for e-cycles
The Delhi government on Wednesday notified incentives up to ₹7,500 for electric cycles, with transport minister Kailash Gahlot noting that Capital is the first in the country to do so. The government also announced that it will build three charging and battery swapping stations for two-wheelers in the city’s industrial areas.
“Delhi has become the first state to operationalise incentives for e-bicycles. OEMS (original equipment manufacturers) can now apply to the transport department for various eligible models. List of approved models will be published on http:// ev.delhi.gov.in. The people of Delhi will also soon be able to avail subsidies on approved models,” said Gahlot.
Under the policy, passenger e-cycles will be eligible for a purchase incentive of 25% of its selling price (up to ₹5,500) along with an additional incentive of ₹2,000 for the first 1,000 individual consumers.
Cargo e-cycles will be eligible for a purchase incentive of 33% of its selling price (up to ₹1,500) along with an additional scrapping incentive of up to ₹3,000 on scrapping old internal combustion engine vehicles (subject to matching contribution by OEM).