Delhi Assy Speaker writes to LG demanding scrapping of BRT

New Delhi, Apr 24 (UNI) Joining the wave of protests against the BRT corridor between Moolchand and Ambedkar Nagar, Speaker of the Delhi Legislative Assembly today called upon Lt Governor Tejender Khanna to intervene for the scrapping of the project.

In a letter to Gov Khanna, Ch Prem Singh, who represents the Ambedkar Nagar constituency in the State Assembly, said,''the BRT corridor is not at all a practical solution to the traffic problems.

In view of this, there is a necessity to scrap the project with immediate effect, otherwise Delhi will continue to face more serious problem tomorrow.'' Noting that severe traffic chaos and mismanagement was witnessed on the 5.8- km stretch since its trial run began on Sunday, Ch Prem Singh said,''as this corridor happens to be in my constituency, I am deeply concerned with the problems and agony experienced by people not only of my constituency but also people living in South Delhi, and deliites who cross Southern parts of Delhi everyday.'' The 5.6 km long Ambedkar Nagar-Moolchandm, which opened on Sunday for a trial run, has been witnessing massive traffic chaos during the first four days of the run.

Reacting to the traffic chaos on the corridor, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Tuesday gave a stern warning to stakeholders of the corridor to tighten all loose ends and set things right in couple of days.

Chairing a high level meeting, attended by all the stakeholders of the project, to review the present situation and take necessary steps to ensure smooth flow of traffic on the first corridor and overcome difficulties resulting in longer traffic jams, the Chief Minister said the Transport Commissioner would daily make an on-the-spot assessment of the situation.

Another review meeting on the project will be held by the Chief Minister on Saturday.

The trial run will continue till the corridor becomes operational in the first week of May.

Meanwhile, the Residents Welfare Associations (RWAs) in South Delhi have planned several protests against the project in the coming days. The issue also figured in Parliament with the members expressing concern over the traffic chaos on the corridor, with some even calling for its scrapping.

The corridor on each side has four lanes, meant for the buses, scooters and cars, cyclists and pedestrians. The width of the bus lane is 3.5 metres, while that of the scooters and cars is seven metres; cyclists and pedestrians have a two- metre lane each.

The Bus Rapid Transit System, which has been designed by the Delhi government to ease traffic woes, will have low-floor high capacity buses move in an exclusive central lane, followed by lighter vehicles on either side, and with two wheelers in the service lane.

Officials associated with the BRT say traffic jams on the corridor is in large part due to the fact that those driving two wheelers and four wheelers are not aware about the division of lanes for different vehicles, thus resulting in traffic jams.

''Being a new system for India, getting used to it by the motorists, autorickshaws and pedestrians will take some time.

Infact, the traffic chaos on the first two days is a case of the motorists taking time to get used to it,''an official associated with the BRT project said.

He said things had definitely shown some improvement today compared to the situation on Sunday and Monday.

Infact, traffic police officials could be seen guiding cyclists, auto-rickshaws, scooters and cars to their respective corridors.

Claiming that there were some signal and signage problems, officials of the Delhi Integrated Multi-Model Transit System (DIMMTS) said they were working on its synchronisation with the traffic movement.

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