3760 DTC buses officially declared ‘overage’ since the inception of Delhi Transport Corporation in 1971

New Delhi: The Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) buses which fall under the Government of NCT, has been declared ‘overage.’

According to the reports of Hindustan Times, over 3760 DTC buses have been officially declared ‘overage.’

This is the first time when an entire fleet of buses has been dubbed as ‘overage’ since the inception of DTC in 1971.

However, the DTC falls under the Government of NCT, Delhi ruled by Aam Aadmi Party’s Arvind Kejriwal.

What HT reported?

According to Hindustan Times, only 32 buses are 8-10 years old while a whopping 3072 buses are 10-12 years old. More than 656 buses, plying on the roads of Delhi, are older than the maximum operational limit of 12 years. DTC is mandated to maintain a fleet of 5,500 buses but the current strength of 3760 buses is far lower than the approved number. To add salt to the wound, the Delhi government had submitted an affidavit before the Delhi High Court in 2018 and claimed that the city needs a whopping 11,000 buses.

Even if private cluster buses were to be added to the existing fleet, the total strength comes to around 6750 (far lower than the required 11000 buses). HT reported that the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) was able to approve tender for new buses in 2008 for the last time. Between 2013 and 2019, it floated 5 tenders but none could be finalised due to stringent Annual maintenance contracts (AMCs). As such, getting a successful tender for new buses has been a major challenge for DTC. Given that the entire fleet of DTC buses have now become ‘overage’, they are ideally supposed to be scrapped.

Expenditure on maintaining these old buses

While speaking about the matter, DTC Managing Director Vijay Bhaduri told HT that they need to add new buses to DTC’s fleet because the expenditure on maintaining these old buses is also increasing. “Even as we are running overaged buses, we cannot compromise on safety and have to keep the buses in their best possible condition, which is an expensive affair,” he said. He added that the State Transport Authority (STA) has now allowed to use the overage buses upto 15 years (almost double of the prescribed operational limit). He claimed that it has given DTC a 2-3 years window to replace the entire fleet of buses.

Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot conceded, “Yes, it is true, and chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has also expressed concern as our state-run buses are the lifeline of Delhi’s public transport. Our DTC and cluster buses together carry at least one million passengers more than the Delhi Metro every day. So, we planned a revival of the DTC by pumping in 1,300 new buses in the next seven months,” he said.