Delhi government is likely to bear an annual expenditure of `850 crores once all the 17 bus clusters are operationalised for the complete phaseout of Blueline buses. Delhi Cabinet’s approval to five clusters so far will alone incur annual expenditure of about `215 crores.
The city government is moving ahead to operationalise bus clusters run by private entities who would be paid for each kilometre they log in. As per the cluster scheme plan, the revenue through ticket sales will go to the transport department and the government will pay a fixed sum for each kilometre decided through bidding process.
As has been the case in the five approved bus clusters, the payment to the operators is going to be a minimum of `35 per kilometre and about 1,000 buses are likely in these clusters.
Further each bus will log in at least 200 kilometres every day, which brings the payout to the operator to about `6,000 for each bus and multiplying this sum by 1,000, the total number of buses, the payment comes to about `60 lakhs a day.
“The monthly pay out to the operators shall be around `18 crores and `216 crores annually for the five clusters alone,” said a senior transport department official, who further added that once all the 4,000 buses hit the roads once all 17 clusters are operationalised the minimum annual pay out to the operators would be about `864 crores. The transport department will have to wait till the buses ply to find out how much they earn from ticket sales.