The Hindu : Yusuf makes a quiet visit to I.P. Depot

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 23, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Yusuf makes a quiet visit to I.P. Depot

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, JAN. 22. Unlike his predecessor, Ajay Maken, who visited the offices of Delhi Transport Corporation in full media glare, the new incumbent, Haroon Yusuf, today made a quiet maiden visit to the Indraprastha Depot, adjoining the DTC Headquarters at I.P. Estate, to see the functioning of the Automatic Vehicle Tracking System and assured that he would expand the project - covering 200 buses at present - to encompass the entire fleet.

The Minister, who reached I.P. Depot, around 2 p.m., first interacted with the senior officials of the Corporation and then went on to view the presentation on AVTS which had been arranged by the staff on two days' notice.

The presentation went on for about 45 minutes following which Mr Yusuf spoke briefly to some of the senior officials before leaving in haste to attend a "Cabinet meeting''.

This left a large number of DTC employees very dejected. "When Mr Maken used to visit our premises, we felt encouraged as he not only used to meet the officials, but also often interacted with the employees. But Mr Yusuf probably has little time for the lower staff,'' said a DTC worker.

The contrasting approach of Mr Yusuf also prevented the DTC from calling upon mediapersons to cover the event. An official said the media was not informed about the maiden visit of the `media shy' Minister to the DTC offices as it was feared that he may not like it.

However, the DTC officials in-charge of the AVTS project appeared quite enthused with the visit.

As the Deputy Chief General Manager (Information Technology), Deepak Sharma, said: "The Minister not only saw the presentation with great interest, he also assured that he would look into expanding the project to cover the entire fleet of 3,070 buses.''

Pointing out that expansion of the project would make it cost-effective, Mr Sharma said once its scope is widened the project will also help DTC utilise the time-keepers and traffic controllers for other jobs.

Also, he said, it would make the scheduling of buses more dynamic, and prevent skipping of trips and idling of vehicles.

Of the view that AVTS provides for better supervision and control, Mr Sharma said at present it covers 200 buses running on the Mudrika service on Ring Road.

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