Land scarce, Delhi govt wants to go vertical to park its new buses

Faced with scarcity of land, the Delhi government has decided to go vertical to park its buses.

In a first, the government has prepared a proposal to build multilevel bus depots to accommodate a total of about 11,000 buses that the city requires. The idea, according to transport minister Kailash Gahlot, was suggested by Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) and the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) after the government stated that it was unable to procure more buses because of unavailability of land.

“The multi-level depots will have to be built under the public private partnership (PPP) model as it is expensive compared to building a traditional surface-based bus depot. So that the transport department can generate revenue, commercial utilisation of space will be allowed on a part of the floor area ratio (FAR),” said Gahlot. He said that the plan is to allot the top floor for office spaces.

Officials of the transport department said that a bus depot is built on a minimum land size of five acre. This costs about Rs 15 crore, which will create a parking space for about 100-120 buses. A multi-level depot would accommodate a little over 200 buses and is estimated to cost about Rs 50 crore.

But the land use needs to be changed in order to allow the department to utilise it for commercial purpose as well. The minister has written a letter to Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal urging him to direct the DDA to change the land use of plots it has identified to develop as depots across the city. “The transport department may be allowed to generate revenue by leasing/selling office space. For this to happen, it is essential that the depot space is transferred to freehold from the present status of leasehold,” Gahlot wrote in his letter dated March 16 to L-G Anil Baijal.

Delhi, at present, has 5,393 buses. Of these, 3,750 buses are run by the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC), while 1,643 come under the cluster bus fleet. These buses are parked in 50 bus depots across the city.

For the additional 2,000 buses which are being procured, the government has finalised 14 new bus depots, out of which construction of seven have been completed. These new ones are in Dichaun Kalan-II, Bawana Sector-I, Rewla Khanpur, Rani Khera-I, Rani Khera-II, Rani Khera-III and Dwarka Sector 22.

Seven others will be built at Kharkhari Nahar, Gumanhera, Mundela Kalan, Rohini Sector-37, East Vinod Nagar, Bawana Sector-5 and Burari by March 2019.

(ENDS)