Delhi minister calls for BRT report

NEW DELHI: Two days after four Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs met PWD minister Satyendar Jain asking for the controversial BRT project to be scrapped, the transport department has been asked to submit a report on the corridor.
Sources said that Jain asked the transport department what purpose the BRT meant to serve and whether it has achieved that initiative. He has also sought to know whether it is possible to retain the corridor and how it can be improved.
However, sources say that the government has more or less decided that the BRT is a failure and there is massive public pressure to scrap it. "The 5.8km corridor from Ambedkar Nagar to Moolchand is currently with the transport department. They had initially asked PWD to take over both maintenance and operation, but PWD is not equipped to operate something like the BRT. The transfer has, therefore, not taken place," said sources.
"There was also a proposal initially that a parallel road be made along the BRT to take the load off the main corridor, but that defeats the purpose of the road. It has been planned badly and this one has to go. A policy decision needs to be taken and, if it is scrapped, the transport department will have to decide on clearing up the infrastructure," sources added.
On Saturday, four MLAs, including Saurabh Bharadwaj from Greater Kailash, Prakash Jarwal from Deoli, Madan Lal from Kasturba Nagar and Dinesh Mohaniya from Sangam Vihar, met Jain after a 12-year-old was crushed under a DTC bus in the corridor.
AAP, meanwhile, claims that it is not opposed to the idea of BRT and says that such dedicated corridors may be necessary to promote public transport. There are five more in the pipeline under the urban development ministry's plan to de-congest Delhi. However, it is of the view that this corridor was poorly planned and implemented and, hence, needs to be scrapped.