Lull in transport dept as Gopal Rai quits

NEW DELHI: A day after Gopal Rai, transport minister, quit, there’s disquiet in the transport department. Projects and policy decisions have been on hold for more than a month now, as Rai had gone on medical leave right after the second phase of the odd-even scheme, which ended in April. With the induction of a new minister, these are likely to be delayed further, said officials.
“There’s a minimum break-in period required for the new incumbent to understand not only the functioning of the department but also the various issues involved,” said the official.And though the new minister, Satyander Jain, has had a quick experience when he was temporarily in-charge of the department when Rai had gone on convalescence leave, it would still take Jain time to understand the issues, he added.
The bad news is that projects which needed a push are likely to be put on the back-burner while Jain gets a solid footing in the transport department. These include projects like approval for a new tender for DTC buses as well as addition of more buses to the cluster system. Right after the second phase of the odd-even scheme, Rai had announced that 4,000 buses will be added to the public transport system this year. Till now however, not even a 100 buses have been added, confirmed officials in the transport department. The only addition to the bus fleet is through the cluster bus system. But the timeline for this induction is long, with only around 200 likely to be added by July. Rai had in April however, said that all 1,000 buses through the bus cluster system will be added in August.
The tender for the 1,000 DTC buses is meanwhile, not even approved by the cabinet. The transport department’s flip-flop over getting more buses for DTC - directly through tender or through another agency like DIMTS, has meant that DTC’s fleet has been dwindling rapidly as more of it’s older standard floor buses get scrapped.
Other projects hanging fire are CCTV in buses, wi-fi, passenger information system, electronic ticketing machines and the introduction of a common mobility card. Interestingly, the pilot project for both wi-fi and CCTV in buses have taken off. While CCTV have been installed in 200 buses, wi-fi was also introduced in several buses are part of the pilot project. Approval for installation of both wi-fi and CCTV is however, awaited. Said a senior government official, “For CCTVs to be installed in all 3,000-odd buses, the minister needs to give the go-ahead. That hasn’t come yet.” The same goes for the electronic ticketing machines, which have been installed in 200 buses, said an official.
The other project that was to take off in July-August is the common mobility card. Rai had said in April that once the ETMs were installed in all the buses, the common mobility card, which would integrate DTC and cluster buses with the Delhi Metro system, would be rolled out in August. However, no progress has been made on this head yet, said officials, citing the slow installation of ETMs in DTC buses. “It will take some time to not only install the machines but also stabilise the system across all the buses. It will be possible to have an operational common mobility card only by the end of the year,” said the official.
Passenger information system is another project that needs to be expedited. It was promised for August-September by Rai.