By IANS,
New Delhi : The Delhi government Monday criticised the Central Road Research Institute’s (CRRI) critical report on the bus rapid transit (BRT) corridor here and rejected it in the Delhi High Court.
Senior advocate K.T.S. Tulsi, appearing for the state before the bench of Acting Chief Justice A.K. Sikri and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw, termed the report “unconstitutional” and irrational as it ignored the rights of bus commuters.
“It is a completely irrational approach. Their concern is car users but not the bus users. For them, a poor person is not entitled to travel fast. The value of time for poor is less important for them,” said Tulsi.
“Bus users are non-persons to them as they have not taken the opinion of bus users while conducting the trial runs,” he said.
The government’s reply came after analysing the CRRI report that criticised the corridor for traffic congestion and backed allowing cars to use the road lanes reserved for buses.
The 5.8 km stretch of BRT corridor – between Moolchand and Ambedkar Nagar in south Delhi – was introduced in 2008 and designed on the model of Bogota city in Colombia to make bus and bicycle travel safer and faster, and encourage travel that did not involve cars.
The court hearing the case posted the matter for Aug 13 and 14 for final hearing on arguments.