NEW DELHI: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has stated that Delhi Transport Corporation‘s cumulative losses soared from Rs 25,300 crore in 2015-16 to nearly 60,750 crore in 2021-22 as it was weighed down by dwindling fleet, with 45% of buses being overage and prone to high levels of breakdown, resulting in below-par fleet utilisation.
In the long overdue report, expected to be tabled in assembly by the new BJP govt on Tuesday, the auditor pointed to multiple lapses, including the transport utility’s inability to augment its fleet, sources told TOI. This is the first of 14 reports that the AAP govt had refused to share in the assembly.
The primary reason for the losses was DTC fares remaining unchanged since 2009, sources said, with the Delhi govt refusing to pay heed to multiple requests. The burden further went up as women were given free bus rides. The auditor also pointed to the absence of any business plan and there was no roadmap to check the bleeding and to ensure its financial viability, said sources who have seen the report.
The skeletal DTC fleet, with broken down buses part of commuters’ daily experience, turned into a political issue, with BJP and Congress repeatedly talking up AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal’s 2015 promise to boost the fleet by 10,000.
CAG points out deficient route planning by DTC
In 2007, Delhi High Court had ordered that DTC should have a fleet of 11,000 buses. However, five years later, the Delhi cabinet pegged the number at 5,500. The CAG report is learnt to have pointed out that at the end of March 2022, DTC had a fleet of 3,937 buses, of which 1,770 were overage. The low-floor buses were more than 10 years old and were due to be phased out by the end of next month.
Although there was a shortage of 1,740 buses, except the addition of 300 buses in 2022, procurement was not done despite Rs 233 crore being available. It did not avail of central assistance of another Rs 49 crore under FAME-I scheme, which CAG attributed to indecision and lack of clarity on specifications. A delay in the finalisation of 300 electric buses under FAME-II resulted in the contract period being reduced from 12 years to 10 years.
An ageing fleet meant that DTC could not achieve operational efficiency compared to the national average. Besides, breakdowns ranged between 2.9 and 4.5 for every 10,000 km of operations, which was seen to be very high in comparison to other state transport corporations as well as cluster buses run by private operators on contract.
CAG pointed out that the performance of cluster buses was much better than that of the DTC fleet on each operational parameter, despite both operating in similar circumstances.
The federal auditor also faulted DTC for deficient route planning with the state utility operating on 468 routes or 57% of the total 814 routes. “The corporation was unable to recover its operational cost in any of the routes operated by it. As a result, it suffered losses of Rs 14,199 crore on operations during 2015-22,” a source said.
While losses soared, the Delhi govt provided a revenue grant of Rs 13,381 crore between 2015 and 2022, which left a gap of Rs 818 crore. Further, DTC did not sign an MoU with the Delhi transport department setting physical and financial targets.
Further, CAG is learnt to have pulled up DTC for not implementing an automatic fare collection system and having CCTV surveillance system that remained incomplete even nine years after the project was initiated.