The Supreme Court on Tuesday set out to make Delhi’s public transport robust by asking the Centre and the Delhi Government to take immediate steps to significantly increase the bus and Delhi Metro fleet in the city.
The court even directed that commercial goods vehicles and trucks, which are not Delhi-bound, will necessarily have to be diverted from four more entry points of the city, in addition to the two entry points on NH 1 and NH8 where the rule was made applicable by court on December 16.
The new entry points chosen are the east and south entry gates situated on NH 2 (from Palwal, Faridabad), NH 10 (from Sapla, Bahadurgarh), NH 58 (from Ghaziabad, Meerut) and State Highway 57 (from Baghpat). The Centre and respective State Governments have been directed to arrange alternate routes to divert these vehicles.
The court wants 10,000 more buses on the road and more Metro trains with increased frequency to cater to the increased load of commuters. A Bench of Chief Justice TS Thakur, Justices AK Sikri and R Banumathi said that efforts must be made to ensure passengers who travel by Delhi Metro get a place to sit instead of being jostled and heckled. It dropped the suggestion for introducing a special coach with premium fare, while leaving it to the Centre to hold discussions with DMRC in this regard.
What possibly triggered the thought were scenes the Bench saw on Monday of Metro trains running beyond its full capacity. The Bench said, “If this rush is due to car owners who have chosen not to take their cars out due to odd-even formula, the least he would expect is that he gets space to sit rather than be pushed around. He will not mind paying `100 instead of `20 for a comfortable ride.”
Senior advocate Harish Salve, assisting the Court as amicus pointed out that he had talks with the Delhi Chief Minister on having first class coaches in these trains.
Internationally, Metro trains run with frequency of less than two minutes while here the frequency between two trains on a route is four minutes, Salve said. Besides, the operating fleet is less and many trains undergo maintenance during peak hours, he added. Noting the potential to increase the fleet, the Bench asked Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar to take instruction for augmenting Metro’s rolling stock and increasing frequency of trains. The matter will be heard after two weeks.
On buses, Salve told the Bench that the Delhi Government was under an obligation as per SC ruling of July 27, 1998 to increase public bus fleet from 5,000 to 10,000 to be achieved by April 2001. As on date, there are less than 5,000 buses run by Delhi Transport Corporation. In addition, there are 1,500 cluster buses. The Court asked both Delhi and Central Governments to respond on why the bus fleet had not been augmented.
For Delhi advocate Rahul Mehra said that space crunch for bus depots. The Delhi Government needs 500 acres land to park 10,000 buses. It blamed the Centre as the DDA, the land owning agency, refuses to grant possession of land. It cited a 70-acre plot, the possession of which is hanging fire despite being allotted to the Delhi Government. The Court directed Solicitor General to seek instructions and ask DDA to expedite the possession of 45 acres out of the 70-acre plot.
The Court agreed to grant one concession for old diesel and petrol car owners by directing the Delhi Government to issue no-objection certificate to permit sale of 10-year-old diesel cars and 15-year old petrol cars to persons outside Delhi-NCR.