DTC may drop ‘passenger frisking’ plan
Corporation instead wants CCTV cameras in low-floor buses
The Delhi Transport Corporation is likely to drop the proposed plan of hiring additional staff for frisking passengers on low-floor buses as, officials say, the exercise is highly impractical.
Instead, the DTC will push for security cameras to be installed on the 3,775 DTC buses plying the streets of the capital. This will help them monitor crimes committed on buses.
In early 2011, the Home Ministry had suggested that special security personnel should be employed to frisk passengers on Delhi buses to monitor pick-pocketing and violation of rules. “We are still checking the feasibility of the plan. It is in the preliminary stage.
We do not even know if this will work because it will be difficult for us to get additional staff just for frisking passengers.
“We will not be able to bear the expenses of hiring more staff. DTC buses transport at least 40 lakh passengers every day on an average. Unless there is a plan to install machines on the doors of buses that can check every passenger getting into and out of a bus, the plan will never be successful,” said Anand Sharma, DTC public relations officer.
Sharma said the DTC was pushing for installation of CCTV cameras on buses. There was another proposal made in mid-2011 for installing CCTV cameras in all DTC buses.
Sharma did not give a timeline for the sanction of the proposal, as it was being scrutinised at the higher level.
“We are trying to put the CCTV camera proposal in place because it will be better to monitor passengers from a monitoring room. At least, we can rewind and see in case of any accidents, thefts or fights,” Sharma said.
According to the Delhi government’s sharing module, the ratio of DTC buses to Delhi Integrated Multi-modal Transit System Ltd buses is around 40:60. Overall, the DTC has 6,200 buses, of which only 4,400 are operational as per the module.
