In a press conference, MLA and Former Delhi BJP President, Shri Vijender Gupta, brought to light the plight of Delhi’s public transportation under the AAP government. Present at the dais with him were state media head Shri Naveen Kumar Jindal and co-head Shri Harihar Raghuvanshi.
Shri Gupta said that under the AAP government, the entire fleet of 3,760 DTC buses (barring 32 buses), currently plying on the road, have become overage and fully depreciated. These buses should have been withdrawn from the road. Instead, the AAP government is spending crore of rupees in maintenance of these buses. Giving out the details, Shri Gupta said that the AAP government has shelled out Rs 500 crore for 1,000 such overage buses. The upper limit for this contract is three years. He added that if the Delhi government spends Rs 500 crore per 1,000 buses for all the 3,760 overage buses, the total cost to the exchequer would amount to approximately Rs 1,800 crore. He said that the amount being spent on maintenance of overage buses could have been utilized to procure 2,000 new buses.
Shri Gupta said that each year since 2015, DTC has been recurring losses. In 2014-2015, the DTC loss was at Rs 1,019 crore. In 2019-20, it increased to more than Rs 1,834 crore. Adding to this, not a single new DTC bus has been added in the fleet since 6 years of AAP coming to power. Under its tenure, the loss of DTC has been scaling new heights, while the number of buses is plummeting causing inconvenience to the people of Delhi. The AAP government has turned DTC into a means to loot and siphon off government coffer. This is the reason that none of the purchase and maintenance contracts of the DTC buses, initiated by the AAP government, have been devoid of financial irregularities and corruption.
Shri Gupta said that he had complained to the CVC and sought their intervention in the AMC contract of 1,000 overaged DTC buses. Taking cognizance of the complaint, CVC has initiated an inquiry. He said that the loopholes found in the AMC bid of the 1,000 new buses are mirrored in the maintenance contract for 1,000 overaged buses. The modus operandi in carrying out the scam, from restrictive bidding to monopolisation to lack of checks and balances in pricing of the bid, is same in both the cases.
Gupta said that the AMC contract of the new DTC buses is already under scanner by the CBI. Instead of answering people’s questions on the matter, CM Arvind Kejriwal and Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot are trying to deflect attention from their misdeeds by running in courts and attacking the opposition for exposing them. He said that nobody from the AAP government and party leadership have conducted any direct press conference in the DTC bus scam.
BJP wants AAP government to answer people’s questions, instead of running away