NEW DELHI: The national capital has added 50 more low-floor buses to its fleet of CNG buses. Chief Minister (CM) Arvind Kejriwal flagged off 50 new air-conditioned, low-floor CNG buses on Tuesday.
The chief minister said the fleet will improve connectivity in rural areas. The minister further informed that the buses are equipped with modern facilities, such as CCTV cameras, panic buttons and GPS systems, for the safety of citizens.
“These buses will be stationed at the Bawana depot and will run on six new routes to increase rural connectivity,” Kejriwal informed. According to the transport department, the buses will operate from the newly-constructed bus depot at Bawana Sector 5 under Cluster-15 CLF. Currently, the cluster buses operate on 360 routes, the department said.
Noting that Delhi has an all-time high of 7,320 buses on the road currently, Kejriwal said it is a record in itself. “Of the 7,320 buses, the DTC has 4,010 and 3,310 are in the cluster. We also have 250 electric buses,” he added.
He informed that the city government has awarded a tender for 1,500 electric buses and is optimistic that those will be added to the public transport fleet by November 2023. “Afterwards, the total number of electric buses would reach 1,800. The year 2025 would also be a milestone year as we would induct 6,380 additional electric buses by then.
Several buses would be phased out during this period as well. By the end of 2025, Delhi would have a total of 10,380 buses in its public transport fleet. Of those, 8,180 would be electric buses. This means more than 80 per cent of buses in Delhi would run on electricity. We will have a modern transport system by then,” he added. Besides, the CM also flagged off 66 new enforcement vehicles, including 36 motorcycles, that have been inducted for the first time to implement bus-lane discipline.