People favour return of odd-even plan: Sisodia

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 7

On day two of the referendum on odd-even scheme of the government, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said people at IP Extension have favoured the return of the road-rationing scheme in as early as mid-February.      

The ruling party MLAs from several other locations claimed to have received an overwhelming support for reintroducing the plan in the city soon. 

‘Govt seems to be in a hurry to implement plan’ 

However, Leader of the Opposition in Vidhan Sabha Vijender Gupta said that the government of Aam Aadmi Party appears to be in a hurry to implement the odd-even scheme again. 

He suggested the government to first improve the public transport system and then only think of reintroducing the scheme. 

"Owners of cluster buses have told that big promises were made to them before taking their buses for public transport. They are running their buses despite the failure of the government in fulfilling these promises,” said Leader of the Opposition. 

Gupta said, “Now the government is not making payment to them as per agreement. It is clearly laid down in the agreement that payment will be made to the owners thrice a month but in January 2016, payment has been made only once.” 

‘Public transport in bad shape’

Claiming that the public transport has been in bad shape since the Aam Aadmi Party came to power, the LoP said, "The situation is so bad that 250 buses of DTC remain defective or break down on the way, which leads to traffic jams and there are always chances of accidents. According to drivers and conductors of DTC buses, 40 percent of the buses break down on the way and thousands of passengers have to wait for hours. It takes two to three days to repair a faulty bus. Apathy and negligence of the transport department is responsible for it." 

Gupta asked the government to first strengthen the public transport system as per requirement of the public and only then the odd-even scheme be implemented. 

He added that without modernising the fleet of DTC buses, the government has made a populist announcement to run 1,000 new buses.

If the system is not updated to meet the present-day requirement, the condition of these buses will also be as bad as of the existing fleet which will further increase the losses of DTC, he said.