HC asks govt to cancel permits of Blueline buses

MORE DTC BUSES: The government has assured the court that Bluelines will be phased out by 2012.

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Keywords: Permit, High Court

New Delhi: Over 70 and counting -- that's the number of lives the privately-owned Blueline buses have claimed on Delhi's roads this year. The state government's safety drive has done little to improve the situation.

The Delhi High Court has now directed the Government to cancel the permits of the offending Blueline buses immediately, and keep them cancelled for at least 15 days.

It has also directed the Government to give commuters a safer option by increasing the fleet of Government buses to 11,000 in the next three months.

Says High Court Lawyer, Anup Bhambri, "All this while, the Government has been saying it's preparing for the Commonwealth. The High Court wanted to know if the government has no respect for lives of its own citizens and whether all this is only to show to the foreigners."

However, the DTC has its own set of problems. The amicus curiae points out that DTC is already incurring losses worth crores every year and additional 11,000 buses would mean extra burden on the exchequer, plus the question that whether Tata motors can supply such a huge fleet at such short notice.

The government has two weeks to explain their difficulties to the court, and also respond to the court's suggestion of introducing double decker buses.

The government has assured the court that Bluelines will be phased out by 2012.