The sustained campaign by the elite press to jettison Delhi’s first mas transit bus system has been remarked upon and documented on Kafila. Today morning’s newspapers carries news of an accident in which 32-year old Poonam Sharma was killed as she tried crossing the road and was hit by an oncoming bus. Delhi’s record when it comes to road safety is abysmal and this is yet another instance of the the terrible and tragic fate that befalls many pedestrians every year on Delhi’s roads. What is interesting though is the way in which accidents on the BRT are reported compared to the reportage of other road fatalities. Here are some headlines from the recent past:

BRT Corridor Claims One More Life

BRT Delhi: Death Toll Continues, Pedestrians Blamed

Delhi BRT has it 10th Victim

BRT Claims another Life: Woman run over by Bus

This is certainly not the first time that an accident on the road has been atrributed to some uniquely malevolent quality in the BRT. This opposition to the BRT is a focussed version of the antagonism that extends to buses in general, even when its clear that private cars kill many more people every year. And yet the accidents on the BRT are presented as a result of inherent flaws in the structure of the road (it is the road itself that “claims” its victims), whereas car accidents, on other roads, are caused by human failure. So while BMW’s might have received some bad press, we don’t hear anyone saying private car ownership is a continuing and rising health hazard for the city’s residents, when in fact statistics show that in 2001 cars regularly mowed down over  2 and a half times as many people as buses, and in 2005 1,1717 people were killed on the road. Of these buses  killed only 106 people. So who killed the rest? Well, Pajero, Skoda, Safari and BMW to name only a few.

But do we hear the Chief Minister calling car ownership a “menace” even though clearly the blueline “killer fleet” is not a patch on the mayhem caused by cars every year. One would be excused for wondering if its safe to step out of doors at all with 4 million killing machines on the rampage on Delhi’s streets, and 963 being added everyday. At 6,500 in 2007, buses are an endangered species which still provide 60% of the city’s transportation.

It is no one’s case that steps do not need to be taken to stop the deaths caused by reckless buses. Road safety needs to improve drastically across the board. An appallingly large number of people are killed on the roads every year by cars, buses and motorbikes. But surely we must not confuse the solution with the problem. Buses are not the problem, cars are. More buses will mean less cars, less accidents and less pollution. And yet from the mid-nineties the image of the killer bus running amok on the streets of Delhi, mowing down terrified pedestrians in its path has been a staple of the mainstream press. The middle-classes were enraged when the BRT prioritized, as any sensible and sane transport system would, mass transport over private cars. One editorial in our favourite paper even asserted that the BRT was a nefarious leftist conspiracy to bring socialism to Delhi’s roads, worthy of Mao’s China no less, to “Ensure equal distribution of traffic and road space by “taking away” lanes from private vehicles to persuade (read force) car-owners to shift to public transport.” Wha..? We’re as bemused by this extraordinary statement as you are.

As we have had occasion to note earlier on Kafila, unless we all wish to be killed by asthama or insanity, this city desperately and urgently needs an equitable public transport system. There has to be a democracy of the roadways and we need to reclaim public transport for the public! Already the powers that be, having buckled to the petrol-guzzling-car-driving-screeching-middle-class are getting ready to axe the dedicated cycle lane in the next phases of the BRT. If the next CM doesn’t display some muscle and throw his/her weight behind the one project which might actually go some way towards solving the crises, I suppose they will have long hours to ponder the consequences of their pusillanimity as they hack into their respirator, nursing the arm some lunatic broke because they took his parking slot.

This is a simple exercise in basic arithmetic that will help us reach some rather basic results, the results might be a little unexpected but simple arithmetic is known to have indulged in such pastimes on other occasions as well.

There are around 3000 Blue line buses that ply on the streets of Delhi, and aside from terrorising the general populace off the streets, sending around 150 citizens of Delhi to meet their respective makers they are also known to occasionally ferry passengers.

It is now public knowledge that most, if not all, these buses are owned, benami, by local politicians and, as the expression goes, their near and dear ones. The fact that these killers are allowed to hold an entire city of close to 14,000,000 to ransom is not entirely due to their being politically correctly related, though that helps, it is mostly because of a well organised system of preventing diligent government servants from the discharge of their duty.

The government servants being thus prevented are gentlemen who have promised to be “with us for us always” [the motto of Delhi Police, for the information of non-Delhi people] (I am personally extremely happy that they are being prevented from discharging their duties towards me). The fellows want so dearly to serve us but are systematically prevented by the drivers and owners (Ds & Os) of the aforementioned vehicles. What can the poor fellows do, every time they want to rise to our defence the Ds & Os or their representatives show them some magical papers and the potential do gooders freeze in mid stride!

Look at how these Lumpen Ds & Os have perfected their plan. Once every month, between the 1st and the 10th without fail, they give the “with us-for us-always” fellows a photograph of the mahatma, at every traffic light and compel them to sign acknowledgement of receipt on a notebook. The moment the paper changes hands the poor fellows are rendered speechless, their hand eye co-ordination atrophies and they acquire the consistency of a soggy wafer. The effects last for four weeks but before they are able to fully regain their commitment to serve us they are given that paper again and once again the public servants lapse into total non co operation with their constitutional masters – the people.

I live in this city, am fast approaching senior citizenship and senility and therefore have a lot of free time on my hands. I have used some of this to travel in these buses (by the way it is safer inside) and while travelling have tried to understand the scale of this operation, I have also worked out some preliminary averages, nothing definitive mind you, but broad indicators of the directions in which future generations may be able to take this study if they were so inclined. The results of my painstaking calculations are as follows:

Every Blueline bus crosses around 20 traffic lights or a combination of traffic lights and traffic circulatories (in my youth they were known as round-abouts or traffic Islands) on each one way trip. Route number 85 from Punjabi Bagh to Anand Vihar ISBT has 35 of these Lights and route no.501 from Mehrauli to Mori Gate has 26. Any way we are not after exact figures, like the exact numbers that are trying to delude themselves into existing BPL that the Government has, we are trying to get an overall picture based on Averages so let us stick to averages, after all that’s how we calculate our par capita income as well and no one minds. So to come back to the point-at-issue, as P.G.Woodehouse would say, here are the figures:

Number of Blue-Line Buses, multiplied by the number of traffic lights (average of 20 per trip per route), multiplied by number of months in a year, multiplied by the exchange value of the magical paper with the image of the mahatma on it (3000 X 20 X 12 X 100 =72,000,000) You get Rupees seven Crore Twenty Lakh only. Every year the “with you for you fellows” are being given these many pieces of paper to carry home.

So much paper work and you still expect the poor sod to go chasing these well connected blue blooded killers, have you no mercy?

If my calculations are right, over the last ten years the Ds & Os have handed out more of those papers than the ones that exchanged hands in the famous Bofors Gun Deal. You know what happened to the investigation in that matter and I know what will happen to my present investigation. Nothing!

I have not been able to put a figure on the Double Patti Waali Lal Battis, these are important crossings, whether with or without traffic lights. At these Crossings the Blue- line wallahs give two magical papers with the image of the mahatma instead of the routine one piece that is the norm at single patti points. This should add further to the poor constable’s work load because all major crossings like Ashram, Mool Chand, AIIMS, Dhaula Kuan, Raja Garden, Punjabi Bagh, Wazirpur Depot, Shalimar Crossing, Sabzi Mandi, Kingsway, ISBT, Railway Station Raj Ghat, Delhi Gate, ITO, Nizam-ud-Din Bridge have all become Double Patti.

I do not have the exact figures for all the White Line buses that ply in Delhi, I have no idea of the number of RTVs in Delhi, I don’t have the exact count of the tempos that transport Chicken from Khichripur and spread their stink on Delhi Streets. I am afraid I will have to take recourse to the RTI act to get all these figures in order to make my calculation a little more reflective of the Road Reality. We need these figures because all these fellows have also become part of the conspiracy to prevent the friendly constables from serving us. All of them keep giving them rectangular bits of papers with images of the Mahatma or the Ashokan Capital and other symbols of our vibrant nationhood and the poor fellows are constantly being prevented from the discharge of their duty.

Can’t someone do any thing, can’t we abolish these people by an act of parliament or through a legal sleight of hand. We got rid of all our polluting factories and the dirty fellows who had encroached upon valuable real estate with their filthy Jhuggi Jhonpri clusters and we did it without too much trouble. We owe it to our hard working honest cops, we have to put in place mechanisms, as the market economist says, to enable them to work to their full potential and give them the time to serve the people who pay for their salaries and so desperately need to be protected. For god’s sake someone do something.