Dying transport corporation

The public transporter’s fleet has contracted to its lowest in over a decade with financial losses mounting each year. The new privately owned cluster buses, being engaged by the government, are gradually edging out thousands of ailing buses on Delhi’s streets

The pulse of the Capital’s proverbial ‘lifeline’, the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC), is growing fainter by the day. Not just its survival, but even the legacy of the DTC seems to be at stake. The public transporter’s fleet has contracted to its lowest in over a decade with financial losses mounting each year as new privately owned cluster buses, being engaged by the government, gradually edge out thousands of its ailing buses on Delhi’s streets. Last week, visuals of low-floor DTC buses being inundated while wading through waterlogged city streets and commuters being forced to rely on umbrellas to avoid leaking roofs exemplify the state of its existing fleet.