The Hindu : DTC in dire need of new tyres

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Aug 26, 2003

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DTC in dire need of new tyres

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI AUG. 25. With the high heat generated in its compressed natural gas buses taking a heavy toll on the tyres, the Delhi Transport Corporation has placed an order for nearly 5,000 tyres for its buses to tide over a tyre-crisis which over the past two months has led to the grounding of nearly 400 vehicles and caused revenue loss worth crores of rupees.

According to a senior official of DTC, 2,000 tyres have already reached the depots and another 3,000 are on their way from the Kottayam, Goa and Medak plants of a tyre major. The official said earlier when these tyres were procured for the diesel buses, there used to be a rider that they would be replaced in case of any problem before they had run around 100,000 kilometres, but this time the procurement norms have been changed and the company would only replace a tyre in the event of a "manufacturing defect''.

Incidentally, the DTC these days is in dire need for new tyres and the arrival of the next consignment within 10 days is expected to really normalise the functioning of the corporation. In fact, the placement of orders had been held up for nearly two months as none of the tyre companies were willing to provide DTC with the tyres on its terms and conditions. This had left nearly 400 buses stranded in the depots for paucity of tyres.

According to official sources,the situation really got out of hand around Rakshabandhan when DTC was only able to operate only around 2,200 of its 2661 buses even though that is a day when the earnings go up due to large-scale movement of people.

It was the inability of the Corporation to meet the requirement of the people that day which prompted the DTC Board to dilute the pre-conditions for purchase and place orders for urgent procurement of tyres. The economic loss on account of the idling of buses in the depots also acted as a catalyst in the decision-making process.

During the two months, the loss in South Delhi alone was to the tune of Rs 1 crore, as per estimates, said an official, adding that the inability of the Banda Bahadur Marg and Okhla Depots to provide proper re-treading facilities also affected the operations.

However, having received about 2,000 new tyres already, DTC is now busy getting all the idling buses back on the road. "Already, we are facing a financial crisis and so we cannot afford to incur any more losses,'' the official said, explaining the urgency.

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