The Delhi Transport Corporation was unable to fully recover its operational cost due to lack of autonomy for fare determination. The fare of the Corporation buses was last revised and made effective from 3 November 2009, said Comptroller General of Auditor said in its report on functioning of Delhi Transport Corporation.
The corporation has suffered operational loss of Rs 14,198.86 crore on operations during 2015-22 due to route planning deficiency.
According to the report, the Corporation was operating on 468 routes (57 per cent) out of 814 routes as on 31 March 2022. The Corporation was unable to recover its operational cost in any of the routes operated by it.
“The scheduled Kms missed by buses ranged from 7.06 to 16.59 per cent and number of breakdowns ranged from 2.90 to 4.57 per 10,000 Kms of operations during 2015-22. This resulted in loss of potential revenues of Rs 668.60 crore due to missed scheduled Kms and higher rates of breakdowns during 2015-22,” it further added.
This was the third CAG report among 14 that are being tabled in the Delhi assembly by chief minister Rekha Gupta.
According to the key findings in the report, during the period 2015-23, fleet of the Corporation reduced from 4,344 (2015-16) to 3,937 buses (2022-23).
“The Corporation could procure only 300 Electric buses (EBs) during 2021-22 and 2022-23 despite availability of funds from Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD). There was delay in addition to EBs in the fleet for which a penalty amounting to Rs 29.86 crore for delayed delivery was not imposed on the operators,” the report stated.
The report found multiple discrepancies in the functioning of the transport department leading to huge losses and liabilities.
According to the data available, CCTV System was installed and commissioned in 3,697 buses in March 2021 and payment of Rs 52.45 crore was released to the contractor but pending the user acceptance test of the system, it was not declared Go live. Thus, this system was not fully operational in buses as of May 2023.
The Corporation had outstanding dues of Rs 225.31 crore recoverable from the Transport Department against unreceived rent, service tax and water charges for space transferred for operation/parking of Cluster buses. Further, Property Tax and Ground Rent of Rs 6.26 crore on these depots and Rs 4.62 crore in providing vehicles to the Transport Department also remained unrecovered.
The DTC had also not prepared any business plan or prospective plan. “No MoU was signed with
GNCTD for setting targets in respect of various physical and financial parameters to contain its working losses. It did not benchmark its performance with parameters of other State Transport Undertakings (STUs),” it added.
The Corporation incurred avoidable liability of interest and penalty of Rs 63.10 crore due to wrongly availing of Input Tax Credit for Goods and Services Tax on exempted services.
The report further stated that there were inefficient managerial controls and lack of accountability. Audit noticed indecisiveness in finalizing the tenders for purchase of new buses, weak operational control, lack of coordination amongst divisions, lack of follow up with debtors, delay in statutory compliances, led to losses to the Corporation.
Meanwhile, there has been a significant increase in the use of low floor overaged buses in the cooperation between 2015 and 2023.
The number of low floor overaged buses in the Corporation during 2015-22 increased from 0.13 per cent (five buses) to 17.44 per cent (656 buses) which further increased to 44.96 per cent (1,770 buses) as on 31 March 2023 of its total fleet. “The proportion of overage buses would be rising further if the Corporation does not make sincere efforts to procure or add new buses. The operational efficiency of the Corporation vis-à-vis All India Average in respect of fleet utilization and vehicle productivity was on the lower side,” it said.
