As the second phase of the odd-even scheme began on Friday, the Congress and BJP attacked the Aam Aadmi Party Government for spending money on advertising rather than improving the condition of public transport in the national Capital. Citing a statistic of Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC), Delhi Congress president and former Union Minister Ajay Maken said the data released by the State transporter shows how its revenue is reducing every year.
Quoting the Operational Statistics released by the DTC for January 2016, Maken comparing the results of the Congress regime and up to January 2016 when the first phase of the odd-even scheme was introduced, said the DTC fleet strength, which was 5445 in 2012-13 when the Congress was in power, was reduced to 4421 in January 2016 under the AAP Government, and the AAP Government had done nothing to make up the shortfall of 1,000 buses in the DTC fleet. He said even the existing fleet was not being utilised properly. The former Union Minister said while on the one hand, when Congress was in power, the DTC ridership was 46.77 lakh per day in 2012-2013 which came down to 43.09 per day in January 2016. Similarly, the DTC, which earned Rs 3.17 crore per day in 2012-13, fell to Rs 2.46 crore per day in January 2016.
Maken further said the per km earning of the DTC, which was Rs 32.72 per km in 2012-13, came down to Rs 26.68 per km in January 2016. He said the route utilisation of the DTC, which was 87.1 per cent in November 2014, came down to minus 2070.4 in January 2016. And the fleet utilisation, which was 85.29 in 2015, came down to 67.87 in January 2016. The operational ratio, which was 80.92 in April 2015, fell to 77.16 per cent in January 2016.
On the other hand, Delhi BJP president Satish Upadhyay said the "unplanned" odd-even scheme was causing inconvenience to the citizens.
"It is the most unplanned scheme the Government has come up with. The Government has not worked on improving the public transportation system," he said.
"On the one hand, he (Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal) is saying that people of Delhi wanted odd-even while on the other hand, the Government is penalising the offenders." Upadhyay asked if the scheme is so popular and people are so willing to adopt it, then why have over 500 violators been fined since morning.
He said the scheme was Kejriwal's ploy to hide the failures of his Government.