Editor Mr.Mayank Rawat ( Chief Editor Mr. Rohit Mishra )
New Delhi: Chief minister Rekha Gupta on Friday claimed irregularities and mismanagement in the functioning of Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) under the previous AAP govt, which led to financial losses and operational failures.
Citing the CAG report on the performance of DTC for the year ending March 31, 2022, when AAP was in office, Gupta said the public bus corporation could be profit-making, but a lack of supervision “ruined” it and turned it into a “loss-making” body. She demanded legal action against those responsible for the mismanagement and urged that the report be forwarded to the public accounts committee for further scrutiny.
“DTC was ruined due to mismanagement. If buses do not operate on all routes, how will DTC generate revenue?” the chief minister said while taking part in the discussion on the CAG report.
With the approval of the house, speaker Vijender Gupta sent the report to the Delhi assembly’s Committee on Government Undertakings to submit its report within three months. The speaker also directed DTC and the Delhi transport department to submit the action-taken notes on the findings of the CAG to the assembly secretariat within one month.
The report, the third of the 14 that were pending for the last few months, was tabled by the chief minister on Monday.
Gupta said there was a debt of Rs 60,741 crore on the state bus corporation and its operational losses were Rs 14,198 crore. Quoting the CAG report, she said that the number of buses came down from 4,344 in 2015 to 3,937 in 2023. Against 814 routes, buses were operational only on 467, causing inconvenience to the public and diminished revenue from ticket sales. “The decline in DTC’s performance stems largely from a lack of political will, ineffective oversight, and an excessive focus on publicity by the previous govt,” the chief minister said, adding that the govt incurred losses of Rs 668 crore due to breakdowns and delays in bus operations. She said the AAP govt failed to utilise Rs 233 crore allocated by the Centre for the purchase of new buses and another Rs 49 crore to buy electric buses.
The chief minister claimed corruption in a transport department’s equity partner in Delhi Integrated Multimodal Transit System (DIMTS) – which operates cluster buses – selling its share for a mere Rs 10 crore, while KPMG valued the company at Rs 85 crore in 2023. “The company offered to sell its share to Delhi govt, but no decision was made on the file for two years. If the 50% stake was sold for Rs 10 crore, the company’s value comes down to Rs 20 crore. How can this be possible? What kind of scam is this?” she asked.
Gupta said the DTC’s assets, such as bus depots and ISBTs, could have generated additional revenue, but the corporation became increasingly dependent on govt grants. Gupta said nearly 4,000 drivers were sitting idle but drawing salaries due to a shortage of buses. She promised to revitalise the DTC and said there will be a card-based ticketing system. “Plans have been outlined for new bus shelters, modernised depots and procurement of electric buses and charging stations. The redevelopment of ISBTs into commercial complexes will further strengthen the transport infrastructure and reduce DTC’s financial burden,” she said.
She also criticised the opposition, stating, “Abusing others has become their habit. They refuse to acknowledge their shortcomings.”
AAP MLAs were not present in the house during the chief minister’s address, as they were marshalled out in the morning on charges of disrupting the proceedings.
Earlier, transport minister Pankaj Kumar Singh spoke on the issue. In his statement later, Singh said CCTV cameras were installed in 3,697 buses in March 2021 for Rs 52 crore, but the system remained non-functional as the User Acceptance Test was not conducted.
He demanded an investigation into financial irregularities and corruption in DTC during the previous govt’s tenure.
Mayank Rawat
