Around 30 lakh passengers travel through DTC buses everyday. Their fate is totally dependent on the drivers of these buses. But what if drivers have to speed up to earn enough money to get their daily bread and butter, what if they are exhausted by working 11 hours everyday , without any holiday
Well that totally defines what DTC contractual workers are going through. Certain policies of the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) are indirectly risking the life of citizens.
Contractual drivers in Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) are paid according to the no of KM’s they cover. Over 8000 contractual workers in DTC gets payed per KM. ” We have a huge mental pressure to cover more distance to earn enough money to fulfill our household needs. For which many drivers break red light, drive fast. If we run our buses at a speed limit of 40 Km/hr, as stated by the government then we would never be able to complete 6 trips nor we would be able to earn enough money. So it is a race against time.” said Pradeep Kumar a contractual driver at the
DTC.
However this policy might be risky for drivers and residents but is financially beneficial to DTC. A contractual driver is merely able to earn Rs 12,000 a month while the salary of a permanent driver is Rs 40,000. Although both of them work equal no of hours.
Apart from the mental pressure drivers have to earn a decent amount of money. They are also harassed by the Depot Manager. ” The depot manager present at bus depots also gets a commission for each km that drivers cover. So at many depots, drivers are told to cover extra kms so that the manager can earn much more. The normal duty of a driver is around 8 hours but as the depot manager forces them their duty extends upto 12 hours.” said Prem Pal union member of DTC worker unity center. Now if a driver is working 12 hours everyday and with no holiday then it’s a fact that he could not be alert enough to drive attentively. The DTC is also aware about the contractual drivers condition but instead of helping them it is making the situation more worse. Contractual drivers who have been working from 10 years have yet not got a permanent contract. In fact many of the drivers say that in the past few years there have been no recruitment of permanent drivers.
DTC have also remained incompetent in attaching GPS and speed governors. In 2017 DTC terminated the Delhi Integrated Multi Modal System’s GPS contract stating that it has failed to provide real time data location. After which the DTC claimed that it themselves would put a GPS at every bus but after one year as many buses are running without GPS and speed governor. Brijesh another contractual driver at the DTC said ” Right now most of the buses do not have a GPS tracker. The speed governors from the DTC were removed way back as I believe DTC themselves know we will not be able to cater total population passengers by driving at 40 Km/hr.