JOIN USThe Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System (DIMTS) had resisted the audit of its internal accounts by the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India.
DIMTS Chief Executive Officer S N Sahai said his company, which is an equal-equity joint venture between the city government and the Infrastructure Development and Finance Corporation (IDFC), has always upheld transparency.
He said DIMTS will consider legal recourse only after knowing the scope of CAG audit.
Deccan Herald spoke to Sahai about the challenges and opportunities involved in the running of a partnership with the government.
His company has handled various projects like maintenance of the BRT corridor, operation of cluster services and has lobbied for intelligent solutions to make public transportation more efficient.
One of the new initiatives of the company includes decongesting the 5.8 kilometre-long BRT corridor. Sahai said DIMTS is waiting for a go-ahead signal from the government.
While contesting the idea of scrapping BRT corridor, he said, “Out of eleven junctions you have traffic jam on one junction (Chirag Dilli intersection). So can you generalise that BRT is bad?”
“You face traffic jams even where BRT is not there. In fact, if you had BRTs, congestion could have been brought down.”
Sahai argues that flyovers only help reach traffic jams faster and is not a solution to city’s traffic woes.
He said it is not imperative for the city to have BRT everywhere, but having more bus only lanes will be better for the city’s traffic.
“A bus carries 45-50 passengers in that lane. And carry 9 times more passengers than two-and-a-half to three cars which is roughly equal the length of a bus. BRT in Delhi was designed not just as a bus system, but as something that will give equity and efficiency on roads,” he said.
On DIMTS ‘rent a cycle’ project, Sahai said his company had written to the MCD for giving permission to build more cycle stations.
“It can’t take off without a network of stations. A person should be able to rent a cycle from one station and drop it at the other,” he added.
Sahai said his company runs 1,053 cluster (or orange) buses. He said with the help of GPS and electronic ticketing machines, DIMTS has been able to improve quality of operation and management.
“Our company has been able to optimise the bus travel. With the help of data we do dynamic scheduling so as to ensure that buses are there where commuters demand the most,” he said.
Sahai said tech upgrade has helped DIMTS to monitor over speeding, route diversions and missed stops. The company has also launched mobile applications for women’s safety and for finding out that travel time of buses.
But he said making these services available on DTC buses is a challenge.
“Almost half of their GPS doesn’t work,” Sahai said, pointing out that his company faces problems in cooperating with the state bus service.