Thaindian News

New Delhi, Jan 13 (IANS) Delhi will miss the March deadline to completely phase out the Blueline buses, an official said here Wednesday.
“We will not be able to completely phase out the Blueline buses by March 2010 and it will take a few more months,” a top transport department official told IANS on condition of anonymity.

However, he did not specify whether the Blueline buses would be phased out before the Commonwealth Games start in October, as per Delhi government claims.

“The problem is that the manufacturers are not able to provide the low floor buses at a faster rate. We just have two manufacturers - Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland - who fulfil our requirements. Another major company Volvo is also there but their buses are very costly,” he said.

Delhi government had set March 2010 as a deadline to phase out the privately-owned Blueline buses ahead of the Games and replace them with 3,500 low-floor buses running on CNG (Compressed Natural Gas).

In the last one year, around 800 Blueline buses have been phased out. However, around 2,600 blueline buses are still plying across the city. The Blueline buses had gained notoriety for causing accidents leading to several fatalities.

“At present, there are around 950 low-floor buses in Delhi. By January end, we will get another 400 low floor buses,” the official said.

“We also had discussions with some Chinese companies as they have good manufacturing capabilities but that did not materialise… They want some Indian partner to invest 100 percent in the project, which did not happen,” the transport department official added.