Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta with a copy of the CAG report.

Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on Monday tabled in the Assembly a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report on the functioning of the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) over a six-year period ending March 31, 2022.

It found that the public transporter’s liabilities bumped up from ₹28,263 crore in 2015-16 to ₹65,274 crore in 2021-22, during which it incurred total operational losses of ₹14,198.86 crore.

The report, the third of the 14 CAG reports relating to the previous Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government’s functioning to be tabled in the House, set off a war of words between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Opposition AAP.

Ms. Gupta said her government will soon release a White Paper on the previous government’s tenure. Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva said, “Every CAG report exposes a new scam of the [former] Arvind Kejriwal government. Today’s report has uncovered the DTC scam, for which former AAP Ministers are accountable.”

In response, AAP said the report had not revealed any “scam or corruption” in the DTC. “The report proves that the AAP government ensured affordable public transport by preventing fare hikes for 10 years and providing free travel for women,” it added.

The previous CAG reports — on public health infrastructure and management of health services, and the now-scrapped excise policy for 2021-22 — were tabled in the Assembly last month.

The audit report on the DTC stated that from 2015 to 2023, the public transporter’s fleet strength reduced from 4,344 to 3,937. CAG observed that the previous government underutilised the funds meant to procure electric buses.

“There was a delay in the addition of EBs (electric buses) in the fleet for which a penalty of ₹29.86 crore for delayed deliveries was not imposed on the operators,” it said.

Moreover, the number of low-floor overage buses in the DTC as a proportion of its total fleet strength shot up from 0.13% (five buses) in 2015-16 to 44.96% (1,770) by March 31, 2023, stated the report.

“The transporter was operating on 57% (468) out of a total of 814 routes as of March 31, 2022, and was unable to recover its operational cost on any of the routes,” it said, adding that frequent breakdowns cost the DTC ₹660.60 crore during the six-year audit period.

It highlighted some of the public transporter’s projects that have missed deadlines or are currently dysfunctional. This includes the first phase of the automatic fare collection system, which was commissioned in December 2017 but has not been functional since May 2020. Another such project pertains to the installation of CCTVs in buses.

“The CCTV system was installed and commissioned in 3,697 buses in March 2021, and ₹52.45 crore was paid to a contractor” despite it not being fully functional as of May 2023, it added.