Few buses and metro trips that are a pain

NEW DELHI: Every day, 1,400 cars are added to the city's vehicle population. This figure is alarming on many levels. But what is truly shocking is the fact that despite calls for augmenting the public transport in Delhi, the state government has been unable to add a single bus to the DTC fleet in the past two years. Cluster buses remain at a measly 1,500 while Delhi Metro runs 2,800 trips daily to ferry around 27 lakh commuters. Public transport figures, in effect, have been stagnant for some time now.

The state bus agency has only 4,700 vehicles in its fleet. This number was 6,000 till 2012 but has been steadily coming down as the older buses get phased out. In desperation, DTC has been running some of its old buses, which were otherwise headed for scrap, in the outer Delhi areas even as its fleet of low-floor and semi low-floor buses get older. Yet, successive state governments have been unable to get the required number of buses. The present AAP government, which had talked about purchasing 500 midi buses for the rural and congested areas, has now got DIMTS to float a global tenders for 2,000 buses for DTC. Meanwhile, the tender for the 500 midi buses still hangs fire.

The number of cluster buses, which should fulfil 40% of the city's bus needs, is limited to only 1,500 vehicles due to lack of depot space.

Delhi Metro, meanwhile, has been running trains that remain crowded during peak and off-peak hours. Despite an ever-increasing ridership—it touched 32 lakh this year—DMRC runs only 220 trains of four, six and eight coach configurations. Packed almost through the day, even increased frequencies and more trips—DMRC added 94 extra train trips during off-peak hours in August—has had little impact.

Adding to the lack of adequate public transport is the fact that commuting between Delhi and NCR is a herculean task. There are few buses running between Noida, Gurgaon and Delhi. Most people have to either depend on DTC buses, where frequency is a big complaint, or rely on private vehicles. Only around 5,000 autorickshaws have been earmarked for travel between Delhi and the NCR. These require special permits from the Delhi transport department. Shared autos and private vehicles is the mainstay of most travelling between Delhi and NCR, admit commuters.

Not surprisingly, the city depends on private vehicles in the absence of a robust public transport.