The Delhi Transport Corporation's (DTC) liabilities rose from Rs 28,263 crore in 2015-16 to Rs 65,274 crore in 2021-22, as it incurred operational losses of more than Rs 14,000 crore during the same period, according to a CAG report tabled in the Assembly on Monday.
Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta tabled the report on the functioning of the DTC for the year ending March 31, 2022, in the budget session.
The report highlighted that the public transporter had not prepared any Business Plan or Perspective Plan, nor signed any MoU with the state government to set physical and financial targets to contain its working losses.
The transporter was also found not to have set benchmark to asses its performance as against other state transport undertakings.
The DTC did not conduct any study on profitability/sustainability even though it was incurring losses continuously, the report noted.
Between 2015 and 2023, DTC's bus fleet reduced from 4,344 to 3,937 buses. It could procure only 300 electric buses, or EBs, during 2021-22 and 2022-23, despite the availability of funds from the government.
"There was a delay in the addition of EBs in the fleet for which a penalty amounting to Rs 29.86 crore for delayed delivery was not imposed on the operators," the report said.
On the depleting fleet, the report said the number of low floor overage buses in DTC during 2015-22 increased from 0.13 per cent (five buses) to 17.44 per cent (656 buses), which further increased to 44.96 per cent (1,770 buses) by March 31, 2023, of its total fleet.
The proportion of overage buses will continue to rise if the DTC does not make sincere efforts to procure or add new buses, it added.
The operational efficiency of the DTC vis-a-vis all India average when it comes to fleet utilization and vehicle productivity was on the lower side.
DTC's fleet utilisation ranged from 76.95 per cent to 85.84 per cent and vehicle productivity per day per bus ranged from 180 km to 201 km as against the target of 189 to 200 km per bus per day during 2015-22, due to frequent breakdowns and the existence of 656 overaged buses.
The transporter was operating on 468 routes (57 per cent) out of 814 routes as of March 31, 2022, and was unable to recover its operational cost on any of the routes.
It suffered operational loss of Rs 14,198.86 crore on operations during 2015-22.
The scheduled kilometres missed by buses ranged from 7.06 to 16.59 per cent and the number of breakdowns ranged from 2.90 to 4.57 per 10,000 km of operations during 2015-22, leading to a loss of Rs 668.60 crore in potential revenue.
The report also highlighted the projects that have not been functional.
The Project for Automatic Fare Collection System (AFCS) Phase-I was commissioned in December 2017, but due to the inability of the system integrator, it has not been functional since May 2020.
Even though the CCTV System was installed and commissioned in 3,697 buses in March 2021 and a payment of Rs 52.45 crore was paid to a contractor pending, it was not declared 'Go live' and was not fully operational in buses as of May 2023.
The performance of Cluster buses operated by the Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System Limited, or DIMTS, was better in every operational aspect except operational revenue per km as compared to the performance of the corporation buses, even though both were operating in the same city and under similar circumstances.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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