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The Delhi transport department’s key policies such as the Electric Vehicle Policy 2.0, cab aggregator and premium bus service schemes are stuck after the termination of services of the advisors, consultants and fellows in the department.
Transport minister Kailash Gahlot said these advisors, consultants and fellows had technical expertise and were working on giving shape to several policies of the department, including the EV 2.0, cab and bus aggregator plans.
“Now that these people have been asked to go, it is the loss of the people of Delhi. They were in the process of examining the feedback that was being received and giving shape to policies,” he said.
“We had plans of bringing premium bus services which were for giving a high-end experience to the people of Delhi,” he said.
Senior officials said that around 50 such people had lost their jobs in different sections of the transport department and around 400 had lost jobs overall.
The issue was raised in the recent Delhi Assembly session when the AAP-dominated House passed a motion of privilege against the officers who discontinued the appointment of the fellows of DARC and referred the matter to its privileges committee.
Last week, the Delhi Assembly secretariat issued orders for the disengagement of 116 fellows under the DARC programme. This came after the services department, following directions of Delhi LG, ordered the termination of the advisors, consultants and fellows in July.
It was alleged that the appointments were made without the approval of the LG and reservation rules were not followed.
Senior officials in the transport department said that the cab aggregator scheme was in the stage of consultation with stakeholders. This being delayed would hurt the bike taxi drivers most as there are provisions for legalising it in the scheme.
“I want to assure you that chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has said that public works will not stop. The pace of our work could be a little slow due to all these obstructions but we will not let the public work stop,” Gahlot said.
Mandatory panic buttons in taxis, integration with an emergency response number ‘112’, and phase-wise transition to EVs are some of the highlights of the draft scheme to regulate cab aggregators and delivery service providers.
The current EV policy expired on August 8, after which the Delhi government extended the Delhi Electric Vehicle (EV) Policy, 2020, till a new one gets notified.
A senior official said: “The policy might see two to three months’ delay as the special body formed to implement provisions of the Delhi EV Policy has been hit after several “specialists” were terminated. Even the CEO is no longer there,” he said.
“However, based on the consultation, so far, it has been felt that in next policy the government could come up with better incentives as most people suggested,” he said.
The bus aggregator scheme had the concept of bringing luxury public service having a seating capacity. Air Conditioner, Wi-Fi, GPS, CCTV, panic button, 2×2 seats, and reclining seats, were mentioned as some of the features that need to be in such a bus.
It also had provisions to book tickets for these premium bus services using a mobile app. Such bookings need to be executed at least 10 minutes before boarding time.
A senior official said that the Delhi government had notified the draft of the scheme but this too is stuck for now.
