Delhi would soon have a large fleet of high-end buses, laced with technology to check unsafe driving and to ensure passenger safety, to address the problem of heavy rush in the metro and scanty transportation services.

Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal told the members of Indian Women’s Press Corps (IWPC) Thursday that his government was revising the contract policy for public transportation. The final draft, he said, would be ready this week and it will be put up on the website for public comments. The new policy, he claimed, will offer a large opportunity for investors in Delhi’s transport.

He said the new buses would be air-conditioned and they can be booked only through an app. This he said would address the problem of passenger safety. The penalty for overtaking and picking an unauthorised person will be to the tune of Rs 10,000. This, he said, would make flouting of rules by drivers prohibitive.

 
On schools

With the AAP government having doubled the education budget, Kejriwal said sweeping reforms in this sector are underway. These include mapping of all government schools for infrastructure and teacher-student ratio. He said 8,000 new classrooms were being constructed to address the space crunch. The state will also appoint 15,000 teachers and develop 54 government schools as model schools.

 
On contractual jobs

Kajriwal said Delhi will soon bring in a law that will ensure contractual employees of the government will get 10 percent higher wages compared to the regular ones. “We want to make contractual engagement attractive.”