New Delhi: Glitches in ‘Pollution Under Control’ certification for vehicles and entry of polluting trucks into Delhi may come up for discussion in the Assembly Tuesday as Chief Minister Rekha Gupta prepares to table a Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report ‘exposing’ failures of the previous AAP government in cleaning the city’s toxic air.
CM Gupta will table the report of the central government auditor on the ‘Performance Audit on Prevention and Mitigation of Vehicular Air Pollution in Delhi’ which will shed light on Arvind Kejriwal’s performance on the front till March 31, 2021.
This will be the third CAG report to be tabled by the BJP government in the Assembly since coming to power. On earlier occasions, the government tabled reports on the health sector and the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC).
Till Friday, the Assembly discussed a CAG report on the financial mismanagement at the DTC and referred it to the Committee on Government Undertakings to submit its report within three months.
Speaker Vijender Gupta said the Transport Department and DTC must also submit their Action Taken Note to the Legislative Secretariat within one month.
The discussion on DTC in the Assembly was held in the absence of AAP legislators who walked out or were suspended from the proceedings by the Speaker for unruly behaviour.
“The Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India on Functioning of Delhi Transport Corporation for the year ended March 31, 2022” was tabled by the Chief Minister March 24.
The CAG report on DTC exposed mismanagement and negligence in public transport between 2016 and 2022 under the AAP government and the alleged waste of crores of rupees of taxpayers due to a policy paralysis.
The House held a detailed discussion on the CAG report presented regarding the “Functioning of the Delhi Transport Corporation”.
Taking part in the discussion, Malviya Nagar legislator Satish Upadhyay said the DTC was once the lifeline of the city, but under the AAP government, it had been reduced to ‘Drastically Troubled Corporation. ’
He said the DTC’s losses increased in six years by Rs 35,000 crore, rising from Rs 25,300 crore in 2015-16 to nearly Rs 60,750 crore in 2021-22, reflecting the failure of the AAP government in coming up with a strategy to make it profitable.
“It is shocking that DTC’s losses are as much as 60 per cent of the Rs 1 lakh crore Budget presented by Chief Minister Rekha Gupta for 2025-26,” he said.
The CAG report on DTC also pointed towards the mounting financial losses of the public transporter which has been offering free rides to women over the last 10 years and struggling to phase out polluting, aging vehicles with e-buses.
The irregularities in the functioning of DTC pointed out by the CAG included failure to prepare any business plan or long-term strategy and inaction to prevent fleet depletion despite the availability of funds.
The DTC fleet reduced from 4,344 to 3,937 buses, whereas, as per the directions of the Delhi High Court, there should have been 11,000 buses, the report said.
The central auditor also noted that the DTC failed to impose a penalty of Rs 29.86 crore for the delay in the supply of electric buses. As a result, by March 31, 2023, the percentage of overaged low-floor buses increased to 44.96 per cent.
During the period from 2015 to 2022, DTC suffered an operating loss of Rs 14,198 crore, the report said.
The report also pointed out that the CCTV system installed in buses in March 2021 had not been declared “Live” even by May 2023.
An amount of Rs 225.31 crore was due to be recovered by the corporation from the Transport Department and revenue losses occurred due to delays in awarding advertising contracts and commercial space allocation, the CAG report said.
IANS
