The Hindu : New Delhi News : TCS suggestions on DTC overhaul upheld

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 28, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

TCS suggestions on DTC overhaul upheld

By Gaurav Bhatnagar

NEW DELHI, DEC. 27. The Core Committee set up to look into suggestions made by Tata Consultancy Services for restructuring the Delhi Transport Corporation has upheld the TCS recommendation on setting up an independent Tariff Fixation Authority for improving the tariff fixation mechanism in the Corporation which has been finding it hard to keep its balance-sheet clean.

As per a presentation made by the Delhi Transport Commissioner, while the TCS had recommended revision of fare structure -- both stages and rates -- based on cost parameters and other city norms and called for setting up of an independent Tariff Fixation Authority, the Core Committee called for appointmentment of an Independent Tariff Authority of three members for all modes under the Motor Vehicles Act. Stating that the report by this authority should be binding on the State Government, it said while initially this should be done by a "non-statutory order'', later a law can be passed to deal with the issue.

On the issue of creating a level playing field, TCS had recommended that the State Transport Authority should set up an independent Cost and Traffic Cell to collect data on performance of private operations on a regular and systematic basis. The Core Committee said this cell was urgently needed to preserve independence of the Traffic Authority which will become a part of the STA later.

The Core Committee also took note of the TCS suggestion that permits be issued to corporate operators only and single bus operators be encouraged to form cooperatives or companies within a stipulated time period. It said the corporate entities should have at least 20 buses and single operators be phased out over a period of time by allowing affiliation.

The presentation also said that since it is difficult for DTC to get reimbursement of bills for the various passes from various department, it may be allowed to raise bills to the Transport Department which may release the amount from its own Budget with the arrival of the Delhi Government for the year 2004 onwards. This, it said, would give DTC Rs 75 crores each for 2003-04 and 2004-05 payable in this year taking care of operational losses in the current year.

For effective monitoring of the system, TCS had recommended implementation of the global positioning based Automatic Vehicle Tracking System on all the city bus operations including private buses. The Core Committee has noted that it is indeed desirable to control speed, outage and enforcement. The presentation said DTC has also expressed interest in rolling out the AVTS and the Automatic Ticketing Machines for streamlining the system and improving its efficiency.

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