DTC buses go off the roads, give school children a harrowing time

New Delhi: Thousands of school-going children had a harrowing experience in Delhi and NCR on Tuesday when most of the 4,705 buses of Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) buses went off the roads. The DTC staffers were protesting the brutal killing of a driver, Ashok Kumar, by a biker on 10 May in West Delhi. They refused to budge despite the Delhi government’s threat of action under Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) before finally calling off the strike in the evening after Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal promised Rs 10 lakh compensation to the family of the deceased. [caption id=“attachment_2240820” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Buses parked at Millennium bus depot as DTC drivers were on strike over the murder of a colleague in New Delhi. PTI[/caption] The students of various schools across Delhi had to wait for their parents or guardians to pick them up. In the morning, the buses had dropped the students to their respective schools; later the school authorities had to send alert messages to parents to collect their wards as the buses ‘all of a sudden’ refused to ply. “The DTC authorities not confirming availability of buses for the afternoon trip, after the school gets over. Parents of children are requested to pick up their ward from the school’s main gate,” a message from Sardar Patel Vidyalaya in central Delhi to parents stated. “We had to alert all the parents through text message and phone calls to pick up their wards. There’s still a lot of uncertainty as we don’t know whether buses will be available tomorrow or not,” an official of a south Delhi school told Firstpost. Hundreds of harried parents were found waiting outside the school gates with cars and autorickshaws to pick up their children. “It’s not always possible for working parents to come and pick up their wards at a short notice like this. The schools are also helpless due to this sudden development. My daughter went to school by bus in the morning, so we were sure that she would get back by bus. Now, it’s uncertain whether the buses will operate fully tomorrow or not,” said VS Sharma, who works in Noida and came to pick up his daughter from Modern School, Central Delhi. There are hundreds of students in Delhi schools for whom DTC buses are the only means of transportation, which they board from bus stops nearest to their residences. As a result of the strike, these students had to walk a long distance to the nearest Metro Rail stations to get back home. “I commute by public bus. But, due to this strike, I’ve to walk a long distance to board the Metro,” said Vikas Prabhakar, a Class 12 student. Due to the DTC strike, there has been a tremendous load on Delhi Metro Rail Corporation. Nearly 40 lakh people, who use the DTC daily to commute, have been compelled to turn to the already-crowded Delhi Metro. According to daily commuters, less than 25 percent of the total buses were on the streets to carry passengers. A small fleet of buses which plied today proved inadequate. The DTC undergoes commercial pact with a large number of schools in Delhi and provides buses to them, and these buses are exclusively used by the schools for students’ transportation. “DTC bus is my daily mode of commutation to my office and back home, because Metro station is quite far from my place. But today despite waiting for a long time I failed to get a bus and finally had to opt for an auto. It’ll be horrifying to get into a Metro train in the evening for going back home, as nearly three lakh extra passengers boarded Metro on Monday,” remarked S Rajan, a central government employee, who always boards DTC bus from near Rakabganj Gurdwara in New Delhi. Besides students, the passengers who came to Delhi by trains and opted to ride a bus, were worst hit, as there were only few buses plying passengers from railway stations at New Delhi, Delhi, Hazrat Nizamuddin, etc. “After de-boarding the train, I had to wait for a long time and finally got this bus No. 794 from Nizamuddin station. I wasn’t aware of this strike,” said Ahmed Mansuri, who came from Gwalior. Though the accused and his mother in the assault case have been arrested for beating the driver to death and for instigating respectively, the striking DTC staffers have refused to budge. “Even though a compensation of Rs 5 lakh has been announced, and the government has said it would provide education to the daughter of the deceased, we have demanded Rs 1 crore compensation. Ashok Kumar didn’t die in an accident. It was broad daylight murder, while he was on duty. There’s no safety for DTC drivers and staffers,” an office-bearer of Delhi Parivahan Mazdoor Sangh said.