Last week CM Rekha Gupta announced the reviving of U-Special bus services. “The Delhi government is once again starting the youth special, which will be on DU’s route with a little bit of music playing in the bus. This is my gift to students today,” Gupta said while addressing a crowd of students during the inauguration of a new academic block at the university’s Social Centre School last week.
U-Specials was a Delhi Transport Corporation run bus fleet which operated from different parts of the city mainly to the Delhi University main campus in North Delhi. Their service was at its peak in the 1970s and 80s, when hordes of buses would arrive at Maurice Nagar and Patel Chest Institute intersections early morning to help students catch 8.30 classes. For the outward movement, there were three schedules, 12.30 pm, 1.30 pm and 3.30 pm.
The travellers in these buses were also users of the pink colour Student Pass. Many teachers, who lived at distance from the campus, would also take this service and they were accorded due respect offering them the available seats.
The teachers who lived closer to the campus mainly used scooters and motorcycles.
There were few who owned Fiat and Maruti 800. Some more stylish would have a Maruti Wagon. These buses had a unique ‘academic’culture. While in college one makes friends with classmates, department mates but if were using U-Specials you could also make friends with bus mates. There are also stories about the marriages which were made not in the heavens but in the buses.
By 1990s, the monopoly of DTC buses were over as the government allowed private operators under Redline (later Blueline) services, who refused to entertain student passes.
These buses also lacked the exclusive culture of U-Specials. By the turn of the century the Metro train had started to run.
While the private buses were boarded out and DTC fleet revived ahead of the Commonwealth Games in 2010, the U-Sp cials could not be resuscitated.
Incidentally the Metro took Delhi University’s academic culture beyond Maurice Nagar to the off campus colleges. Many new colleges became more accessible now with Metro connectivity. This also reflected on the intake of the students which improved by leaps and bound with admissions getting ever difficult. New university campuses/institutes in ‘far off’ Dwarka too started to flourish with the Metro connectivity.
CM Rekha Gupta’s initiative to revive U-Specials is more spurred by nostalgia than any immediate necessity. “Back in our college days, that bus felt like our own — no one else could enter. Over time, those buses disappeared. But today, Delhigovernment is bringing them back,” she said at the aforementioned function.
Gupta having been a students of Delhi University and also having led its students union must be having some very good memories of the U-Specials specially the poll campaigns in these buses. However, the needs and necessities of the students have now changed.What’s today needed in the North Campus and various other colleges and other educational institutions spread across the city is to give strength to last mile connectivity.
Metro has created a network which has knit the city well. But on deboarding the train, the travel to destination in the final leg is largely through shared auto rickshaws or e-rickshaws. Now that’s not a very comfortable journey. Today, various other last-mile solutions are being deployed like electric “Mohalla Buses,” DEVI and RRTS-linked e-buses, integrated bike services, and digital platforms to unify transport but they are neither adequate nor sufficient.
Given this backdrop, reviving U-Specials in their traditional form wouldn’t meet modern mobility needs or even appeal to the people.Instead of U-Specials, which now would not have many takers, Delhi government should initiate U-Shuttles for last mile connectivity.
U-Shuttles could be flexible, mini shuttle services combining the legacy appeal of U-Specials with contemporary features. It could have amenities for comfort and safety. The system should be integrated into Delhi’s Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (UMTA) framework, for modal integration and unified ticketing also. Delhi today needs smart specials and not just youth specials.
Sidharth Mishra
Author and president, Centre for Reforms, Development & Justice
