Flagging off the buses, Arvind Kejriwal said, “These buses will be stationed at the Bawana depot and will run on six new routes to increase rural connectivity." The new buses will operate from the newly-constructed bus depot at Bawana Sector 5 under Cluster-15 CLF.
Currently, the cluster buses operate on 360 routes.
Noting that Delhi has an all-time high of 7,320 buses on the road currently, the chief minister said it is a record in itself. "Of the 7,320 buses, the DTC has 4,010 and 3,310 are in the cluster. We also have 250 electric buses," Arvind Kejriwal said.
Arvind Kejriwal said the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government has awarded a tender for 1,500 electric buses. He said those will be added to the public transport fleet by November 2023.
"Afterwards, the total number of electric buses would reach 1,800. The year 2025 would also be a milestone year as we would induct 6,380 additional electric buses by then. Several buses would be phased out during this period as well. By the end of 2025, Delhi would have a total of 10,380 buses in its public transport fleet. Of those, 8,180 would be electric buses. This means more than 80 per cent buses in Delhi would run on electricity. We will have a modern transport system by then," he said.
Arvind Kejriwal said there was a time when there was a dip in the number of buses and no new buses were flagged off.
"The buses were overcrowded. However, the people of Delhi know very well that it took us some time, but we have succeeded now in intensifying the process of procurement, as a result of which we have inducted so many buses in the last two-three years. This includes both CNG buses and electric buses, in cluster as well as in the DTC," Arvind Kejriwal said.
"It [Delhi] is the capital of the country and it is our vision that the transport system of Delhi should be superior to the transport system of any city in any developed country. Working in that direction, we have inducted buses in our fleet of public transport on a massive scale to achieve our goal," the chief minister said.
(With agency inputs)
