A day after this newspaper reported about the crisis in the Delhi transport system, Delhi transport minister Ramakant Goswami on Saturday directed the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) to enhance the buses on different routes for night hours. He also asked the transport department to request the Delhi Metro to extend its services till 12 am for the convenience of late evening commuters.
This newspaper had on Friday reported about how Delhi’s transport system is equally responsible for the crisis, which led to the gangrape incident.
The minister, in a statement released on Saturday, admitted that regular bus service of DTC and cluster services are operational only from 5 am to 11 pm. The DTC is operating night services on selected routes connecting IGI Airport, railway stations and ISBTs.
“Directions have also been issued to the transport department to ensure that GPS should be installed in all the public service vehicles. It should be further ensured that the vehicle owner keeps the GPS installed on all the time. The terms and conditions of the permits should be suitably modified to ensure it. Any tampering with GPS system should result in serious action like impounding the vehicle. It was further decided to immediately start the GPS system in autos and in garmin sewa vehicles. The GPS system in DTC low-floor buses and cluster buses has already been installed and is being made fully functional,” said a senior Delhi government official.
He also directed the transport department to intensify checking of PSV badges of the drivers driving the public service vehicles so as to detect the drivers who do not possess the badges. The action, including impounding of vehicles and heavy fine, will be taken in case of drivers driving the public service vehicles without PSV Badges.
However, the city government did not mentioned about when and how they are going to fill up the crisis of buses in DTC. There are only 5,589 buses plying against the sanctioned strength of 11,000.