Delhi government given a year to expand bus fleet

New Delhi: To clean the national capital’s air, the EPCA has set December 2018 as the deadline for the Delhi government to augment the city’s bus fleet to 10,000 in a mega plan, which awaits the Supreme Court’s clearance.

The deadline has been set by the Environment Pollution — Prevention and Control Authority (EPCA) in its report on the “Comprehensive Ac-tion Plan for Air Poll-ution”, which was submitted to the Supreme Court on November 16.

The EPCA had earlier submitted the report in March. But the SC, recently, asked it to resubmit it after including clear timelines for implementation of the proposed measures.

The revised report would now be taken up by the apex court and, once cleared, it would have to be notified by the Centre.

“Delhi government must ensure total compliance with the orders of 1998 and 2016 by December 2018. This requires a total fleet of at least 10,000 buses,” the report said.

The proposal to increase the city’s bus fleet to 10,000 is not new.