A day before the second half of the Budget session of Parliament starts, the Delhi Government said on Sunday that it will run six special buses to ferry Members of Parliament to Parliament House. Also, the Government made an appeal to the lawmakers to follow the odd-even rule and opt for carpooling. Meanwhile, at an all-party meeting convened by Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, an MP sought relief from the Speaker saying some members were facing inconvenience due to it.
“I have appealed to all MPs to follow the odd-even rule. In order to facilitate the lawmakers, we have decided to run six ‘MP Special’ buses to ferry them to Parliament,” Delhi Transport Minister Gopal Rai said.
Rai said he also talked to lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan over telephone and sought details from her on the MPs attending Parliament.
“I have apprised her (Mahajan) of the Delhi Government’s decision to run six special buses for MPs and if required, we will run more buses,” he said.
The Delhi Transport Corporation will operate three “MP Special” buses each from North Avenue and South Avenue via Akbar Road and Ashoka Road, he said.
“If MPs do not prefer to travel by buses, they have the option to carpool. They should contribute to make Delhi a pollution-free city,” the Minister said.
Members of Parliament have not been given exemption under the odd-even scheme, the second phase of which started on April 15 and will end on April 30. The violation of the car-rationing scheme attracts a penalty of `2,000.
President, Prime Minister, Vice-President, union ministers Chief Justice of India, judges of high courts, women among others are exempted under it.
Meanwhile, in order to augment public transport, the Delhi Government is all set to add 3,000 buses to the Capital’s roads this year,
Rai said on Sunday. This will the first procurement since the Aam Aadmi Party came to power in Delhi. As per the Government’s plan, 1,000 buses to be run under cluster system will start arriving by the end of this month while 1,000 new DTC low-floor buses will hit the streets from August.
The Government has already made it clear that it cannot implement odd-even scheme permanently till such time public transport is upgraded.
Rai said two buses will start operating in the last week of April and they will ply under cluster scheme that is run by Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System ltd (DIMTS).