Former Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president and Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) Rohini, Vijender Gupta on Thursday said the entire fleet of 3,760 Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) buses has become old and its value has depreciated. Addressing the media, Gupta, said that these buses should have been withdrawn from the city’s roads.
Targeting the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Delhi, Gupta said that the Delhi Government has shelled out Rs 500 crore for 1,000 such old buses. “The upper limit for this contract is three years,” he added.
“If the Delhi Government spends Rs 500 crore per 1,000 buses for all the 3,760 overage buses, the total cost to the exchequer would amount to approximately Rs 1,800 crore. The amount being spent on maintenance of overage buses could have been utilised to procure 2,000 new buses.”
Citing a report, Gupta said that each year, since 2015, the corporation has been recurring losses. “In 2014-2015, the DTC’s loss was at Rs 1,019 crore. In 2019-20, it increased to more than Rs 1,834 crore. Not a single new DTC bus has been added to the fleet during the six years of the AAP coming to power. Under its tenure, the losses incurred by the DTC have been scaling new heights, while the number of buses is plummeting, causing inconvenience to the people of Delhi,” the BJP leader said.
Gupta, who was Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly also said that the AAP Government has turned DTC into a means to loot and siphon off Government coffers. “This is the reason that none of the purchase and maintenance contracts of the DTC buses, initiated by the AAP Government, have been devoid of financial irregularities and corruption,” he alleged.
