JOIN USDelhi Transport Corporation cancels staff leave for odd-even days
The Delhi Transport Corporation has cancelled leave of its staff – especially drivers and conductors – to ensure the entire fleet of over 4,700 buses hits the road during the January 1-15 curbs on odd-even cars.
Sources said the government is also preparing to bring out a notification to create legal backing for penalising violators of the odd-even plan.
“The cancellation of the leaves of DTC staff is to ensure that maximum number of buses could be run during the two week period and vehicles are not stranded in depots due to shortage of staff,” said an aide of Transport Minister Gopal Rai.
A senior official of the Corporation said: “We want to ensure full fleet utilisation and for this even senior officials would be monitoring the situation by spreading across the city.”
In terms of daily average, only 4,180 DTC buses out of a fleet of 4,705 could run during 2014-15. The rest were stranded in depots due to non-availability of staff or breakdowns. The Corporation’s buses ferry 38.87 lakh daily average passengers.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has already linked the success of his odd-even plan on availability of adequate public transport buses and the DTC is expected to ply nearly 4,700 buses and private chartered operators and schools are going to press nearly 6,000 buses into service during the January 1-15 trial run of the odd-even plan to restrict private vehicles.
Transport department sources said the government was looking for a strong provision under which the violators of the odd-even plan could be penalised.
“A notification may be brought out by the government to treat the violation of the odd-even plan as running a vehicle without registration. It might invite an on-the-spot fine of Rs 2,000,” said an official.
The decision to bring out the notification seems to be the outcome of brainstorming over the past few days on how to create fear in the minds of people who may try to violate the odd-even plan.
Meanwhile, the Opposition Congress has blamed the government of proposing the odd-even number plan to divert public attention from the issue of a week Janlokpal Bill passed by the Assembly and a steep hike in the salary of legislators.
Congress chief Ajay Maken said his party would launch a three-phase campaign to expose the Kejriwal government.
Leader of Opposition Vijender Gupta of the BJP raised the issue of lack of CCTVs in the city – a problem that Kejriwal discussed with the central government on Wednesday.
The BJP alleged the AAP government could collect Rs 5,600 crore arrears from the private power companies to generate funds for putting the CCTVs, rather than blame the Centre for shortage of funds.
The government is deliberately not recovering the dues from the power companies, he said.