Don't scrap BRT: govt to HC

The Delhi government today urged the Delhi high court not to scrap the BRT corridor between Ambedkar Nagar and Moolchand and said that such a step would affect similar projects set to come up in other parts of the country. Harish V Nair reports.

The Delhi government on Wednesday urged the Delhi high court not to scrap the BRT corridor between Ambedkar Nagar and Moolchand and said that such a step would affect similar projects set to come up in other parts of the country.

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The court will decide the fate of the corridor on July 23 after considering the final Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) report which said that the stretch-users could travel better without the exclusive bus corridor, and advised its scrapping.

Senior lawyer KTS Tulsi, who the government roped in especially to represent it at the time of crisis, told the bench: "BRT projects are coming up in other parts of the country. Any order to scrap it will also affect them. The study was conducted for too short a time. People need time to develop a habit and get used to it whenever a new system of traffic management is introduced."

The court gave the government time till July 23 to analyse the 200-page CRRI report which said: "Experimental run of allowing other vehicles to ply on the earmarked lane for buses yielded better benefits for all the road users compared to the BRT situation."

Tulsi said that the government would like to file its stand in the form of an affidavit after studying the report.

The court was hearing a PIL filed by Colonel BB Sharan of NGO Nyayabhoomi which demanded either scrapping of the project for the chaos it caused or allowing other vehicles on the exclusive bus lane too.

CRRI calculated the fuel loss due to continuation of BRT corridor by taking the difference between normal BRT operations and the trial run. It came to around Rs. 2.48 crore per annum.