DTC makes do with short-term hiring

Govt plans to add 1,000 more buses

 Delhi Transport Corporation plans to make do with short-term hiring of bus conductors even as Arvind Kejriwal government plans to add at least 1,000 buses to the DTC fleet to allow imposition of the ‘successful’ odd-even rationing of road space from time to time.

Ahead of this month’s odd-even plan, Delhi government invited over 13,000 candidates registered with the employment exchange to appear for the interviews for the short-term jobs.

Around 2,000 appeared, but rest didn’t show up.
The short-term employees get the ‘minimum wage’ guaranteed by the government.
“In all, 1,719 candidates including 446 empanelled candidates who were on select panel have been deployed as conductor on short-term contract to meet the emergent requirement and proper operation of the additional buses,” the Corporation said in a report to the government on odd-even formula.

The DTC operated nearly 1,200 contract carriages under the ‘Paryavaran Bus Sewa’ service, rolled out during the 15-day odd-even trial early this month. According to Delhi Transport Minister Gopal Rai, more than one-third of private schools had refused to give its buses for the odd-even scheme.

Schools in the Capital were closed during the odd-even trail between January 1 and 15 because of a government order.

Sufficient buses
As per a December 10, 2015 letter, Transport Department wanted to engage “sufficient number of additional buses”.

The department said it required anything between 4,000 and 5,000 buses to accommodate the shift away from private vehicles.

But the government scaled down its target of hiring private buses as it decided to give a host of exemptions, including to female drivers, two-wheelers and taxis.

The Kejriwal government has decided to expedite buying of 1,000 new buses since it is unequivocal about its plans of continuing with the odd-even scheme. At a public event to “congratulate” Delhi for “successful” implementation of the road rationing drive, Rai had promised to induct new buses after July.

According to a DTC official, the government has no plans of hiring conductors as full-timers in near future.

When employed on short-term basis, conductors take home less than Rs 500 as wages daily – a lucrative deal for many part-time job seekers in Delhi.
The official said most of these candidates are enrolled in correspondence programmes in universities.

Currently, the Corporation runs its fleet of over 4,000 working buses with 4,000 drivers and 7,000 conductors working on contract.