DTC’s liabilities doubled in 7 years, reveals CAG report
The total liability of the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC), responsible for running public buses in Delhi, has more than doubled in a seven-year period between the financial year 2015-16 to 2021-22 when the AAP government was in power, a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report, accessed by The Tribune, revealed on Tuesday.
The total liability, which included equity capital, subsidy against electric buses and interest on government loans among other things, was Rs 28,263 crore in 2015-16. It shot up to Rs 65,274.31 crore in 2021-22.
It is pertinent to mention here that the findings of the audit report are yet to be tabled in the Delhi Assembly.
The DTC, as of March 2022, had a fleet of 3,762 buses in its 36 depots operating on 461 cities and seven National Capital Region (NCR) routes. It carried on an average of 15.62 lakh passengers per day, with a manpower of 30,591 employees, and had a turnover of Rs 660.37 crore in 2021-22. By end of March 2023, the corporation had a fleet of 3,937 buses.
The CAG report states that the performance audit was taken up considering the essential bus service being provided by the Corporation in Delhi and the fact that it has been “continuously incurring losses”.
The audit examined whether the resources were utilised optimally to achieve operational efficiency and management of services was done based on sound business principles during the period of seven years from 2015-16 to 2021-22.
The audit report found that the corporation had not prepared any business plan or perspective plan. No MoU was signed with the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) for setting targets in respect of various physical and financial parameters to contain its working losses.
“During the period 2015-23, fleet of the corporation reduced from 4,344 (2015-16) to 3,937 buses (2022-23). The corporation could procure only 300 electric buses (EBs) during 2021-22 and 2022-23 despite availability of funds from the GNCTD. There was delay in the addition of EBs in the fleet for which penalty amounting to Rs 29.86 crore for delayed delivery was not imposed on the operators,” an excerpt from the report read.
The number of low-floor “over-aged buses” in the corporation during 2015-22 increased from 0.13 per cent (five buses) to 17.44 per cent (656 buses), which further increased to 44.96 per cent (1,770 buses) as of March 2023 of its total fleet.
The report also observed that CCTV system was installed and commissioned in 3,697 buses in March 2021 and payment of Rs 52.45 crore was released to the contractor, but due to the pending user acceptance test of the system, it was not declared “go live”. Thus, this system was not fully operational in buses as of May 2023.
The CAG report, however, noted that the performance of cluster buses operated by Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System Limited (DIMTS) was better in every operational aspect except operational revenue per kms as compared to the performance of the corporation buses even though both were operating in the same city and under similar circumstances.
