NEW DELHI: After almost 10 years of wait, the Delhi Transport Coporation (DTC) is going to get 1,000 buses under its fleet which will start coming from May 2021. The transport department has already finalised the bidder for manufacturing the upcoming fully air-conditioned buses.
According to a senior government official, the tenders for the 1,000 fully AC buses have been evaluated and now it has to pass through various administrative channels including the DTC board. It will be placed before the Board in one or two weeks. After getting its approval, a resolution will be made and submitted to transport department and after completing all the process, it will be sent to the cabinet for final approval.
Once the cabinet accords its approval, the DTC will be give ‘Letter of Intent’ (LOI) to the company. All the due process will be completed in less than six months, added the official. All these buses will be environment-friendly with BSVI. Besides, these buses will be equipped with state- of-art infrastructure facilities such as AC, CCTV cameras and panic buttons with speaker for woman safety and will be also be disabled-friendly with fitted lifts.
Buses under DTC were last purchased during the Sheila Dikshit government in 2010 where about 3,570 buses were procured. As per State Transport Authority (STA), the life span of the buses is 15 years. But as per the tender condition, the residual life span of the buses is 7 years to 10 years or 7.5lakh kms and ten years life. However, it has been extended to cover 1.20 lakh km.
“Many completed its time but we sent those to Annual Maintenance Contract (AMC) and run them again. Currently, 150 buses has been sent to AMC,” said the official. Due to the condition, many buses under DTC fleet faces breakdown almost every second day. Further, including cluster buses, Delhi public transport has around 5, 600 buses.