BRT to return to Delhi: AAP govt to identify suitable roads

The Arvind Kejriwal govt had dismantled the Moolchand-Ambedkar Nagar BRT corridor in 2008

The Delhi government will identify new road stretches for setting up BRT corridors, months after the only such carriageway built by the Sheila Dikshit government was dismantled due to its "poor design".

The Transport Department of the city government has proposed to conduct a thorough study to find out stretches where Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridors are feasible.

The Arvind Kejriwal government had dismantled the Moolchand-Ambedkar Nagar BRT corridor, a Rs 180-crore traffic project built in 2008, saying it was built without a proper planning, but had accepted the concept of such corridors was not bad.

During Assembly elections in 2015, the Aam Aadmi Party had promised to dismantle the BRT corridor as "it was causing traffic snarls" on the stretch.

"As per the plan, the transport department will identify such road stretches where new BRT corridors can come up.

"New BRT corridors will be built based only on a proper planning so that such structures do not cause traffic snarls later as we had to see in the case of the previous BRT corridor," a senior government official said.

The official said that after the the proposal is cleared by the transport commissioner, it will be sent for the approval of higher government authorities.

In January last year, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had started the process of dismantling the BRT corridor by striking a hammer and taken a swipe at previous Dikshit government for its "copy-paste" work.

"Congress leaders might have gone abroad and copied the BRT and pasted it in Delhi without proper planning which was a dangerous work. Even cheating requires application of mind...

"The concept of BRT is not bad. In several countries, BRT corridors are there and there is also a dedicated lane for buses. But, there is a proper system before introducing such project," Sisodia had said.