Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) may soon get its new fleet of buses after it was decided to remove the contentious maintenance clause from the terms and conditions as it braces itself to float a new tender.
The Annual Maintenance Contract (AMC) had proved to be a bone of contention between the State-run transporter and manufacturers the last few times the tender was floated by DTC.
With the process to procure new buses having started afresh, this time, DTC has decided to take the maintenance half the buses in its own hands, while floating a separate tender for the other half, said Dr RS Minhas, DCGM (PR), DTC. By taking the maintenance of vehicles out of the procurement process, the step has paved the way for an agreement to be reached with the manufacturers for procurement of new buses
Minhas further shared that the file concerning the procurement of 1,860 new buses is with the Cabinet and as soon as the approval comes from the Cabinet, the tendering process will be initiated immediately.
Earlier, DTC had failed to procure any new buses even after having issuing tenders multiple times. This time, however, prospects of procuring the new fleet of buses seem high, said Minhas.
According to DTC, Tata has signed a 12-year contract with DTC and is failing miserably to maintain the buses it has earlier provided and is being fined heavily for all the breakdowns that happen regularly. And hence, it doesn’t want to be responsible for the maintenance for any new buses it provided.
“Now the process is back to how it used to be. Now the manufacturers will just be providing buses without signing any AMC. With the responsibility of maintaining the buses not falling on them, there shouldn’t be any problem in procuring new buses,” added Minhas.’
Earlier also, DTC itself used to maintain its fleet of buses. But after switching to CNG, the maintenance was passed on to the manufacturers. Asked why a separate tender for maintenance will be floated only for half the buses, with DTC maintaining the other half, Minhas said that the organisation has enough staff and resources to maintain that many buses on its own.
last month, Delhi Transport Minister Gopal Rai had directed the DTC to re-operationalise its defunct maintenance unit. Citing high cost of maintenance by the manufacturers as per AMCs, he had asked that if the Government-run transporter had the capacity to maintain the fleet on its own, why should extra financial burden be borne by the tax payerIJ
During the last tendering process, Tata Motors had reportedly demanded Rs 62 per km as maintenance charge of each bus, while sources claim that the revenue from running the buses itself comes to around Rs 30-Rs 35 per km making it impossible to pay such a high amount for maintenance. As per the current AMC signed during the last procurement, DTC pays Rs 9 per km for maintenance to the manufacturers.
Out of the 1,860 new buses for which the tender will be floated by the DTC, 1,360 will be semi-low-floor buses and 500 others will be midi-buses (medium-sized buses). Delhi Transport Minister Gopal Rai had announced in April that if low-floor/semi-low-floor buses are not available, then the Government will explore buying midi-buses.
However, an official claimed that midi-buses are not very durable and may not be a feasible option for the DTC. “look at the condition of midi-buses currently being run as Metro-feeders. They are not durable at all. Semi-low-floor buses are much better option for the DTC,” said the official.
DTC has the approved capacity of 5,500 buses, but is running only 4,700 buses at the moment. Out of those, around 900 buses are old standard-floor buses that will soon need to be phased out. It had been trying to procure around 1,300 new buses to keep its fleet at 5,500, but has failed to procure any new low-floor buses for almost three years now.