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 | Blue terror Killer buses continue run in Delhi Our Correspondent The bus rapid transport (BRT) system is not the only bane of the people of Delhi. The old scourge of the Capital, Bluelines, also continues to torment them. For the year 2008, the killer buses ended up claiming 121 lives—and there is no hope of their lethal run coming to an end. Transport officials say that Bluelines would be replaced from April 2009 by low-floor buses joining the fleet of Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC). Further, Delhi Transport Commissioner RK Verma maintains that the plan for corporatization of buses is going on smoothly. The state Government under Sheila Dikshit also claims that the phase-out of Bluelines will be complete by 2010. But the claims have to be taken with a handful of salt. On July 4, 2007, the Chief Minister announced that all 4,200 Blueline buses would be phased out. The reality is that even today, after more than one and a half years of the announcement, the number of killer buses remains the same. On July 7, 2007, her Government decided to get bus cooperatives and corporates to run the show; but so far what we have come across are promises and plans—and very little that can be called concrete. Five days later, the transport minister mooted the Kilometre Scheme, which did pretty well in the 1980s, but the scheme was dropped a month later. The High Court had to intervene and ask the Dikshit Government about the progress on the phasing out of Bluelines. The Government requested the court in January 2008 to be "a little flexible" because the phasing out has to be synchronised with arrival of new buses. There is a pattern in the state Government's trickery to persist with Bluelines. Every time there is some major accident, public outrage and media outcry, the Government talks about its helplessness to discard these buses in one go; it talks about phasing them out gradually. Then, it comes up with various options—corporatisation, cooperativisation, more DTC buses, KM Scheme, et al. At the same time, it ensures that no option takes a concrete shape; the red tape is wrapped around any new scheme so tight that it never takes off. Gradually, Bluelines fade away from public memory, which is notoriously short. This is the reason that, despite general indignation and media flak, the chaps who always emerge triumphant are the owners and operators of killer buses. It is an open secret that they have are hand in glove with police officials, the local authorities and politicians. And now that Sheila Dikshit has come back for the third time, the vested interests can rest assured that their live-in relationship with the state authorities will not be rocked. Posted on : 1/6/2009 Mail this article to your friend |