‘Contract for standard-floor buses will not be awarded’

The city government and the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) assured the High Court on Monday that they will not award any contract for standard-floor buses till May 23, following the court’s objections that they are not disabled-friendly.

The assurance was given as a Bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C. Hari Shankar appeared inclined to stay the entire tender floated on March 15 for procurement of 1,000 standard-floor buses .

The Bench was of the view that the differently abled will not be able to access public transport as standard-floor buses are not easily accessible by the differently abled and the elderly.

Next date of hearing

Taking note of the views of the Bench, the DTC and the Delhi government assured it that the contract under the tender, which was opened on May 10, will not be awarded till the next date of hearing on May 23.

The court said that DTC and the government will be bound by the statement. The order came on a petition seeking to quash the March 15 tender.

Advocate Jai Dehadrai, appearing for the petitioner, said the tender was in violation of earlier orders of the court as well as undertakings given by the DTC to not go ahead with procurement of standard-floor buses.

DTC’s affidavit

The DTC said in an affidavit that older standard-floor buses were unsafe and inefficient compared to low-floor buses and that the new ones it was going to procure will be as proper as low-floor buses.

However, the new standard-floor buses will not be able to cater to people on wheelchairs, the transport corporation admitted in its affidavit.

The plea

The petition has contended that by issuing the tender to procure 1,000 standard-floor buses, the DTC and the Delhi government have “completely failed to take into account the issues faced by the disabled and elderly population when it comes to basic access to public transport”.