NEW DELHI: Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta on Saturday wrote to Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal seeking a high-level inquiry into the AAP government’s decision to purchase 1000 electric buses “without concrete planning”.
The Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government had approved the proposal to add 1,000 low-floor AC electric buses to the national capital’s public transport fleet. If implemented, Delhi will become the first city in the country to have such large number of environment-friendly public vehicles.
The BJP has been claiming Kejriwal had taken the decision to procure 1,000 electric buses in “haste, without any concrete planning” for its infrastructure. It also claimed the government neither had depots to park these buses nor the power infrastructure to charge them. The ruling AAP had dismissed the allegations as “laughable”.
On Saturday, Gupta reiterated his charges that the AAP government neither had depots to park these electric buses nor the power infrastructure to charge them. “Of the six bus depots approved to house these buses, five do not even exist on the ground. East Vinod Nagar and Burari are part of protected forest. No permission has been taken from the forest department so far for constructing bus depots at these places,” the senior BJP leader wrote in his letter.
A copy of the letter to Raj Niwas was posted on the Twitter handle of the BJP leader.Gupta also drew the L-G’s attention to the lack of infrastructure to charge such a large number of vehicles. “Dedicated grids for power supply system have to be provided.” But when the government was told that there 18 to 24 months would be required, the senior BJP leader said, a show cause notice was issued to the special power secretary under “political pressure”.