Private players for transport operations

By Lalit K. Jha

NEW DELHI, JULY 5.

The decks have been cleared finally for inviting big private players for participation in the public transport system of the Capital. Under the newly approved plan, private sector would own and operate 80 per cent of the city buses.

A pre-qualification bid tender is likely to be floated by the Delhi Transport Department soon as the ``Zonal System'' of public transport system was recently approved by the Delhi Government, highly placed sources said.

Under the new system, the Capital has been divided into five zones -- North, South, East, West and Central -- with each managed by separate companies. While the Delhi Transport Corporation, has been given the Central Zone, the rest would be handed over to the private companies. The role of the individual bus operators would be reduced over a priod of time and phased out slowly.

``The attempt is not only to bring in major private players in such an important sector, but also to improve the safety and security of the commuters. It is easier to regulate companies than individual operators,'' sources said, adding they have already received feelers from leading private companies, including a few manufacturers expressing their willingness to run the transport sector.

In an attempt to give some scope to the existing private operators, a provision has been made for co-operative societies as partners of the private company of a particular zone. For a Zone, the company should have an annual turnover of Rs. 300 crores and for sub-zones (each zone has been further divided into four-five smaller segments) should have an annual turnover of Rs. 50 crores.

As per the decision, each Zone would be having about 1,600-1,800 buses. ``Of these two-third would ply on inter-zonal routes, while one-third would ply within the zone. Buses of each zone would have separate colours and the National Institute of Design has submitted a report in this regard,'' officials said. There are about 1,000 bus routes in the Capital.

According to the Zonal system approved by the Government, it has been mandatory for the private companies to have a judicious combination of ordinary buses and high-capacity urban buses. ``We plan that initially about 20 per cent of their fleet should have urban buses,'' officials said.

It has also been clarified that these private bus companies would have to honour the bus passes, make changes in their buses and provide the infrastructure for the smart-cards which are likely to be introduced, besides the automatic vehicle tracking system which uses global positioning system and GIS.

While the private companies would be entrusted with the task of operating buses and collecting the ticket fare, thus making the profit, they have been sounded that there might be a separate fare collection company after the Smart cards comes into vogue.

As for the huge infrastructure of the DTC, like depots, workshops and pass counters, it is likely that these would be made available to the private companies on hire.

Conceding that the government might initially find it difficult to rope in the private sector for all the four Zones it intends to privatise officials said that initially bids might be invited for only two.

After the pre-qualification bids a high-level committee would shortlist the companies and then invite them for the final bid. ``This will take some time,'' officials said.

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