The State government on Thursday informed the Madras High Court that 10% of the 2,213 city buses to be purchased for use in Chennai, Coimbatore and Madurai would be low-floor buses which could be accessed easily by the differently-abled.
Appearing before a Division Bench of Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and R. Hemalatha, Advocate General Vijay Narayan said the government had already inked a pact with German development bank KfW for purchasing new city buses.
The bank had agreed to finance a project for operation of climate-friendly modernization of bus service in the major cities of the State as a measure towards improving the performance and restructuring of the ailing State Transport Undertakings (STUs).
Stating that the government had not been able to add more buses to the fleet due to financial constraints, the A-G said the revenue through the Transport Department in 2019-20 was only ₹10,366 crore whereas the expenditure stood at ₹14,800 crore.
“In such circumstances, conversion of all buses into low-floor buses will not be viable since the expenses incurred by the department was already higher than the collected revenue,” he said and listed out the problems in introducing low-floor buses.
He said the cost of low-floor buses was double than the cost of conventional buses and that there would be considerable drop in mileage too. Further, the passenger capacity of low-floor buses was less, and it would add up to financial burden faced by STUs, he added.
Not convinced with the submissions, the Division Bench said practical or financial difficulties could not be cited as a reason by the State for non-implementation of Section 41 (access to transport) of the Right of Persons with Disabilities Act of 2016.
As long as the statutory provisions were in force, they must be complied with, the judges pointed out. They also said that the High Court itself had been passing a series of orders since 2016 for introduction of buses that could be accessed by the differently-abled.
Failure to implement those directions would amount to contempt of court, the Bench said and recorded the submission of the A-G that he would hold deliberations with Chief Secretary K. Shanmugam and find out what best could be done on the issue.
The judges directed the A-G to disclose the outcome of the deliberations on February 26. The directions were issued on two public interest litigation petitions that had been pending in the court since 2005 and 2007 seeking better facilities for the differently-abled.
During the course of arguments, Justice Sathyanarayanan wondered how only 10 low-floor buses could be operated in Chennai city by the Metropolitan Transport Corporation. He also asked what does the MTC mean when it says the city lacks infrastructure for operation of such buses.
The judge further wanted to know what happened to the Volvo buses purchased under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). “Where did they vanish? I am a regular commuter by government buses, so I notice all this,” he said.
Rita Chandrasekhar, counsel for MTC, replied that the transport corporation changes its fleet once in six years and that therefore those buses had been changed.
