NEW DELHI, APRIL 21: A day after chaotic scenes were witnessed on Delhi roads as the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Corridor was put to test, Chief Secretary Rakesh Mehta today came up with the idea of letting taxi cabs and auto-rickshaws ply on the dedicated bus corridors. This is being seen as a bid to try and deflect growing criticism of the project.

Government sources said Mehta called a meeting today and decided that taxis and auto-rickshaws should be allowed to use the dedicated corridors to lessen traffic congestion in South Delhi. The meeting was attended by Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System (DIMTS) managing director Sanjiv Sahai, city traffic chief S N Srivastava and IIT’s Dinesh Mohan and Geetam Tewari.

While the Delhi government has signalled flexibility on the dedicated corridors, there is no word on where and how will taxis and auto-rickshaws stop in the BRT corridors.

But this idea is being put up for discussion at a meeting called tomorrow morning by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit. All involved with the project have been asked to be present.Although only 5.2 km of the corridor is complete, the Transport department has spent over Rs 100 crore on the project. Its executors and implementers are drawing criticism of providing only ad hoc solutions.

Although Mehta, as chairman of DIMTS, wants to replicate the Bogota (Colombia) BRTS model in the Capital, the fact remains that Delhi has 56 lakh vehicles, of which nearly 80 per cent are privately owned. This is not the case in Bogota where there is a dedicated BRT corridor for around 15 km, not 26 corridors as envisaged by the Delhi government.

The entire BRT exercise has already led to differences within the government. Lieutenant Governor Tejinder Khanna wants the government to carefully consider the project before moving ahead.