Last stop for Bluelines: Dec 14

“It wasn’t feasible anymore to leave Delhi residents at the mercy of Blueline bus drivers,” Transport Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely said. “Within a day of coming back on the roads (after the Commonwealth Games last week),Blueline buses started killing people. As Transport Minister,it is my responsibility to provide Delhi a safe public transport system,” he said.

Private buses were first introduced in Delhi in 1992 and came to be known as Blueline buses in 1996 because of their new colour. Permit-holders of these buses,many of which are built illegally on a wobbly truck chassis,almost invariably rent the vehicles to private contractors for Rs 4,000 to Rs 5,000 a day,a senior transport official said. Drivers are then pushed to deviate to profitable routes,tamper with speed governors to drive fast and maximise trips to earn profit,increasing fatigue levels and encouraging rash driving,the official said. The staggered phase-out,likely to begin Wednesday,will start with 1,600 of the city’s 2,300-odd Blueline buses that were forced to stay off the roads during the Games,officials said.

Lovely said a proposal to phase out 950 of these 1,600 buses that came back on the roads last week has been sent to the Lieutenant-Governor. “As soon as we get the L-G’s approval,we will phase out these buses,” he said.

The remaining 650 buses will not be allowed to resume operations,a senior transport official said. “ Once these 1,600 buses are taken care of,we’ll have roughly 700 more buses plying in Delhi. They’ll be asked to shift out by December 14,” the official said.

Transport Minister Lovely said the phase-out will be enforced under Section 115 of the Central Motor Vehicle Act that deals with emission norms of commercial vehicles.

After the phase-out,Delhi will have roughly 6,500 state-run Delhi Transport Corporation buses and not more than 2,000 chartered and mini-buses. Commuters could face problems initially because of the phase-out,Lovely said.

“We are getting 5,000 more drivers in the Delhi Transport Corporation to ensure the state-run fleet is on the road for the maximum time. There can be some problems initially,but I am sure that we will soon be able to provide a good bus service to Delhiites,” Lovely said. Over 1,000 new low-floor buses,used to ferry athletes and dignitaries during the Games,have now been included in DTC’s fleet.

Asked about the case regarding the phase-out of Blueline buses on 600 routes pending in the Delhi High Court,Lovely said the government was confident that the court will accept its decision. “We will apprise the High Court about the decision and I am confident that the court will accept our proposal,” he said. The High Court had stayed the government’s move to phase out the Blueline buses in February this year,arguing that the DTC alone was not capable to meet the requirement of public transport. The next hearing is on October 28.

Although the government failed to keep its promise of launching the first cluster bus service before the Games,Lovely said it will start from November. His department had divided nearly 650 bus routes into 17 clusters,each comprising profitable and non-profitable routes to be run by a private operator.

Delhi Bus Ekta Manch spokesperson Shyamlal Gola said they have not been officially informed of the move taken by the Delhi government. “We are still clueless why the government has taken this kind of a stance towards Blueline buses. We will meet the Transport Minister,Chief Minister and Lieutenant-Governor to discuss the issue,” he said.

Gola said they will be forced to move the court if the matter is not resolved soon. “In the last hearing,the court had ordered that the phase-out should take its own course and there is no reason why the government is speeding it up. There are several buses that were replaced in 2002-03 and with a lifespan of 10 years,several of them can still ply for another two to three years. Why are they being put out of service so early?”