Demand Accountability From BMTC

World over, urban public transportation is gaining importance from a policy perspective, owing to the urgency of the climate crisis, ensuring equity, access, and justice, and its crucial role in sustaining livelihoods. For a city like Bengaluru, with a consistently increasing population estimated at over 13 million as of 2022, it becomes even more imperative for the authorities to ensure that the public transportation system is well equipped for the needs of the growing population and environmental realities.

Two back-to-back instances of public buses catching fire in Bengaluru in January and February 2022, within two weeks, warrant an urgent discussion on the authorities running the public transportation system, and a demand for accountability. To not feel safe while commuting in public transport goes against all ideas of the state’s responsibility of ensuring citizens’ right to mobility.

Bangalore Metropolitan Transportation Corporation (BMTC), which is the government agency responsible for operating the public bus service in Bengaluru, has been consistently falling short of delivering on certain promises it has been making over the years. BMTC’s ridership in 2019–20 was around 33 lakh, which is a constant reduction from 48.2 lakh in 2016–17, 45 lakh in 2017–18, and 35 lakh in 2018–19. The ridership decreased further due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source: NewsMinute

In 2021, Jhatkaa.org filed petitions under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI), to demand answers from BMTC, and found some glaring irregularities. The following points of inquiry were raised in the RTI:

• Policy around the procurement of electric buses and retirement of old buses
• Whether BMTC follows any emission norms
• Details around buses emitting black smoke
• The grievance redressal mechanism or policy in place

Shift to clean transportation

In 2016, the National Green Tribunal (NGT), following a Public Interest Litigation, issued an order making it clear that BMTC can only procure buses that run on clean energies like electricity or natural gas. What followed was BMTC continuing to purchase diesel buses, and announcing and revising plans, each time the issue was raised.

• In 2017–18, an announcement to add 3,000 diesel buses was made, despite the NGT order. At the same time, in September 2018, Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameshwara stated that all the polluting diesel vehicles for public transport in Bengaluru will be replaced with electric buses in the next five years.
• A lot of these hurdles have also been political as, in January 2019, procurement of electric vehicles was delayed as DC Thammanna, Transport Minister at the time, was pushing for purchase, while a tender for leasing was being preferred by some factions and already been finalised.
• In March 2019, a plan to introduce 80 electric buses was taking longer due to the aforementioned tender delays. NA Harris, Chairman of BMTC believed that a leasing model would hurt the Corporation, and while an outright purchase would lead to high initial costs, it would be beneficial in the long run.
• In 2019, BMTC also approached the Supreme Court of India against the stay by NGT on its purchase of 1,000 BS-IV diesel buses during the year. On being questioned at the time, a BMTC official quoted in the media that there were no plans to induct CNG buses as the operational costs were high.
• However, it informed the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) that it had invited an Expression of Interest in March 2019 for inducting 1,500 e-buses in a phased manner over the next 5 years, along with the installation of charging infrastructure. It further made a statement in July 2019, that it would fully electrify its fleet by 2030.
• As per an NGT order from September 2020, BMTC had taken no action to convert its fleet to more eco-friendly alternatives. They were still in the process of issuing a tender for purchasing electric buses and BS-VI diesel models, with no timeline being provided.
• When this was pointed out, BMTC agreed to come up with a revised plan in July 2021. In fact, in January 2021 BMTC announced plans to acquire 380 electric buses under two separate schemes.
• 80 buses were to be partly funded by Bangalore Smart City Project Limited and 300 through a union government scheme to promote e-vehicles i.e., Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles (FAME) II Scheme.
• BMTC has also made various claims, as late as December 2021, that diesel vehicles are more environmentally friendly than the CNG BS-VI norm vehicles, while completely ignoring the point around electric buses.
• After multiple petitions and demands for accountability, BMTC finally inducted new buses in December 2021, including only 40 electric buses and 150 BS-VI diesel buses.
• As per RTI responses, BMTC had approved the procurement of 150 electric buses in October 2016 itself, along with announcing plans for setting up the required infrastructure for the operation of these buses under the Government of India’s FAME II scheme.

What happened in the ensuing years is something that BMTC must provide an answer to, given the number of claims it has successively made and discarded.

Phasing out of BS-III diesel buses

In January 2019, the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation directed BMTC to phase out all BS-III buses and induct electric buses. BMTC responded that the scrapping would be done in a phased manner, as and when the buses were eligible for scrapping as per norms. Not surprisingly, this phased plan was also delayed.

This demand for scrapping old buses was first brought up by the Union government in 2014, as a directive for all states, following which the petition against BMTC’s old buses was filed in 2016. BMTC was the first transport body to conduct trials for electric buses in 2014, instilling a sense of confidence that kept dissipating over the years.

• In 2019, BMTC submitted to the CPCB that it had 3,000 BS-III buses and the procurement for these buses was already stopped in 2011. Further, as of October 2019, around 1,234 buses that were more than 11 years old or had clocked over 8.5 lakh kilometers were still in operation in Bengaluru, which was against the norms and BMTC’s promises. Only 33 buses had been scrapped during the year.
• In 2020 as well, BMTC cited the COVID-19 pandemic to be the reason for scrapping only 40 out of the 1,000 buses that it originally planned to scrap.
• Later, in November 2020, BMTC stated in an affidavit to NGT that it currently had a fleet of around 2,813 BS-III buses, and issued a plan again, for replacing the same with BS-VI buses.
• In this plan, BMTC specified three deadlines for the phased scrapping i.e., March 2021, March 2022, and March 2023. Thereafter, in another affidavit to NGT in December 2021, BMTC again revised these phased deadlines to March 2022, March 2023, March 2024, and March 2025.

Given their history of consistently delaying and revising these deadlines, a trust deficit has occurred regarding these reactive claims made by the Corporation each time.

Emission norms

In a response to the RTI filed by Jhatkaa.org, BMTC surprisingly responded that it had not formulated specified norms or policies regarding emissions. It was also stated that all 45 BMTC depots are equipped with computerised emission testing facilities, but no real-time data was provided or maintained. BMTC asked the RTI applicant to seek data from each depot. Further, it was indicated that Karnataka State Pollution Control Board and Transport department conducts around 18–20 surprise checks in a year for pollution measures and the health of the buses, however, no specific data was provided for that as well.

• As per an article by Citizen Matters in 2018, it was found that the Transport Department had no mechanism to issue notice to BMTC when buses do not meet the emission norms or failed the emission tests.
• It was also stated by a transport department official that the only way to check BMTC’s emission levels was through randomly inspecting the Pollution Under Control certificate or going for physical tests.
• BTMC claimed in the RTI that none of its buses emit vehicular smoke; a claim that can easily be contested by scanning posts on Twitter that show black smoke being emitted by BMTC buses.
• In fact, following the RTI response, Jhatkaa.org started a campaign to crowdsource images of black smoke being emitted. This further widens the trust deficit and lack of accountability, given the absence of any complaint mechanism to report such instances.
• Earlier, BMTC had introduced a system for citizens to report instances of emissions either online or through a helpline for a reward of INR 1,000 after inspection proved the claim to be authentic. From September to October 2014, BMTC ended up paying INR 1.85 lakh in rewards!
• Currently, this mechanism to report does not exist. Besides, most citizens are not aware of any mechanism to provide feedback to BMTC regarding its services.

We still believe that with the right push from the citizens of Bengaluru, BMTC can be held accountable to deliver on its promises and ensure affordable, safe, and sustainable public transportation. Please sign our petition and join the movement to demand better buses for Bengaluru and protect the environment and our health!