Delhi CM flags off 50 e-buses, lays foundation stone for automated vehicle testing station

New Delhi, Nov 14 Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on Friday dedicated 50 new electric buses of the Delhi Transport Corporation to the public, including 30 twelve-metre buses and 20 nine-metre low-floor air-conditioned buses, an official said.

All buses are equipped with CCTV cameras, panic buttons, GPS, and accessibility-friendly infrastructure, said the official in a statement.

The Chief Minister also laid the foundation stone of an Automated Testing Station (ATS) at the DTC Tehkhand Depot in South Delhi.

The event marked a significant milestone in the government’s efforts to build a cleaner, greener, and more transparent transport system in the national capital.

Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Minister said that within a span of just eight months, the Delhi Government has made extraordinary progress in the transport sector.

She highlighted the historic measures undertaken to make vehicle fitness testing modern, transparent, and fully digital. These steps, she noted, will greatly enhance Delhi’s environmental quality and transport efficiency in the coming years.

The Chief Minister emphasised that this major initiative would play a crucial role in reducing pollution in the city.

She added that commercial vehicles are among the biggest contributors to pollution in Delhi and that robust, technology-driven emission testing is essential for effective pollution control.

Transport Minister Dr Pankaj Kumar Singh, MP Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, Councillor Sugandha Bidhuri, senior officials of the Transport Department, and other dignitaries were present at the event.

The Chief Minister said that vehicular emissions remain one of the most significant contributors to Delhi’s air pollution.

She pointed out that Delhi has nearly 6.5 lakh commercial vehicles requiring an annual fitness certificate, yet the system had been neglected for decades.

She noted that earlier the capital had only one centre at Jhundpura, with a limited testing capacity of just 47,000 vehicles. This forced lakhs of vehicle owners to travel to NCR cities for fitness testing. She stated that previous governments left Delhi’s transport arrangements in deep disarray.

The Chief Minister underlined that within just eight months, the current Delhi Government has introduced modern, transparent, and fully digital systems for vehicle fitness testing reforms that will have far-reaching benefits for both the environment and the transport network.

She informed that Delhi’s first Automated Testing Station at Nand Nagri is rapidly nearing completion and will have an annual capacity of around 72,000 vehicles.

Designed to be fully digital and free from human intervention, the centre will ensure a transparent, reliable, and time-efficient fitness certification process. This will bring significant relief to lakhs of vehicle owners and contribute meaningfully to the city’s pollution-control efforts, she said.

She announced that Delhi’s second fully automated station, with a capacity of 73,000 vehicles annually, was inaugurated on Friday at Tehkhand. With this, the city’s total fitness-testing capacity has effectively doubled.

Meanwhile, the existing centres at Burari and Jhundpura are being upgraded with state-of-the-art technology and modern standards. After the upgradation, Delhi will be able to conduct fully automated fitness tests for more than one lakh vehicles every year.

Transport Minister Dr Pankaj Kumar Singh shared that the Tehkhand ATS has been built at a cost of Rs 10 crore. It will conduct fully digital, automated checks of brakes, suspension, underbody components, headlights, axles, and emissions, and is expected to generate approximately Rs 3 crore in annual revenue.

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