Commending Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) of coming a long way from lagging behind Delhi Integrated Multi-modal Transit System (DIMTS) to outperforming it in terms of revenue earned per bus, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that DTC has raised its profits by almost Rs7 crore per month since April this year.
In recognition of the good work by various DTC depots, the Chief Minister gave away awards to the top ten best performing depots. “It is the first time that the good work of certain depots is being rewarded. I hope that those depots and workers who have won this year will work hard to break their own records, and those that were left behind will work even harder to win the award next time,” said CM Kejriwal.
Kejriwal also announced an increase in per kilometer allowance for the contractual employees of the DTC. “Contractual drivers who are paid Rs4 per kilometer for driving upto 2,250 kilometres will now be paid Rs5 per kilometer. Similarly, the allowance for drivers who drive more than 2,250 kilometres has been raised from Rs5 to Rs6 per kilometer. This means that the contractual employees will now earn Rs2,500 to Rs4,500 more per month on an average as their salaries,” said Kejriwal.
Out of the 32,000 employees working in the DTC, around 12,000 are contractual employees who will benefit from this move. Kejriwal also listed various initiatives being taken by his Government to improve transport system in Delhi including installing CCTV, deploying marshals and providing WiFi service in the buses. He said that the dream of providing WiFi service in the buses will soon be made into reality as his Government is in touch with some big companies.
The Kejriwal-led Delhi Government had last week held discussions with many leading Internet and telecom companies including Google, Facebook and Ericsson regarding its ambitious city-wide free WiFi project.
However, Kejriwal pointed out that there’s still improvements needed in the efficiency of DTC operations. “85 per cent buses leave their depots in the morning and 75 per cent leave in the evening. There’s room for improvement there and I hope that this figure will be brought upto 95 per cent in near future,” he said.
Delhi Transport Minister Gopal Rai added that the system of rewarding the best performance will encourage competition among the depots leading to overall improvement in the efficiency of the whole department.
“While the performance over the last few months have shown that we have moved forward from where we were, but we have not reached where we want to be,” said Rai adding that many buses still fail to leave the depots.
He added that the monthly revenue of the DTC since announcement of reward scheme has risen from around Rs69 crore to around Rs76 crore, an increase of around Rs7 crore per month.
Promising the DTC employees of full support from the government, Rai said, “You keep doing your work and serve the people of Delhi, and we will keep doing our work.”
Based on eight physical and financial parameters including average fleet utilization, driver productivity, breakdown ratio, and earning per bus, ten depots were selected for the “Best Performing Depot Awards”.