By IANS,
New Delhi : The Delhi High Court Monday reserved its verdict on a plea seeking permission for cars to use a road lane reserved for buses on the bus rapid transit (BRT) corridor here.
A division bench of Justice Pradeep Nandrajog and Justice Manmohan Singh reserved the order after all the parties concluded their arguments on a plea filed by an NGO, which sought scrapping of the traffic arrangement on the 5.8-km-long Ambedkar Nagar-Moolchand BRT corridor in south Delhi.
NGO Nyaya Bhoomi’s president B.B. Sharan alleged that the corridor was causing inconvenience to the public.
Sharan referred to a survey report of the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) on the functioning of the BRT and sought its scrapping on the ground that it was harassing the commuters and was a complete wastage of public money.
“The BRT has reduced the road space as much as 40 percent. It has increased the commuting time twice…where people can go in 20 minutes it takes 40 minutes because of slow traffic,” Sharan said.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for intervener NGO National Alliance of People’s Movements, supported the corridor saying the number of passengers travelling by buses on the route had increased after the introduction of the BRT corridor.
As per the CRRI report, earlier the commuters who travelled on the route by buses were 25 percent while after the corridor was introduced, their number increased to 27 percent, said Bhushan.
The petition said that most of the time the reserved bus lane remained empty with the situation on other lanes, meant for cars and other vehicles, remaining chaotic and the people getting stuck in jams for hours.
The petition sought court’s sought direction to the Delhi government to allow cars to run on the corridor lane, reserved for buses, during non-peak hours.