City’s health minister Satyendar Jain and transport minister Gopal Rai will travel in the odd-numbered car of chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on January 1 to reach the Delhi Secretariat. While culture minister Kapil Mishra will travel on his motorcycle, environment minister Imran Hussain will take an auto ride to reach the Players Building. Social welfare minister Sandeep Kumar is likely to travel by bus from ISBT.
In an attempt to make odd-even formula successful, the AAP government is also learnt to have purchased five Swift Desire and five Maruti Ciaz and Nano cars to ensure its ministers and senior officers do not suffer during day for travelling from one place to another in the 15-day pilot project being implemented in the city from January 1. The cost of Swift Desire and Maruti Ciaz cars works between Rs 9 lakh to Rs 12 lakh each.
Sensing that the shortage of cars during the implementation of the pilot project could affect the movement of the ministers and other senior officers, the AAP government is learnt to have purchased about a dozen-odd cars. While a source said that the new cars were parked inside the Delhi Secretariat, there was no official confirmation whether these would be used by the Cabinet ministers to discharge their duties. “Of the 10 new cars, five have odd registration numbers and the remaining have even registration numbers. These will most probably be used by Mr Kejriwal and his Cabinet colleagues,” a senior officer told this newspaper.
All through the day on Thursday, the Delhi government officers were seen busy telephoning each other on how they could pool their cars so that they could reach their workstations on time. A senior officer said that three bureaucrats had tied up with each other for car pooling.
“The bureaucrats will travel together from their respective offices to the Delhi Secretariat and return in the same car. They will coordinate with each other if they have to move out of the Secretariat during the day time.”
Another Danics officer said that he has decided to travel from office to home by Delhi Metro.
“In between, if I have any other engagement, I will use my colleague’s car. In case, the car is occupied, I will engage a private taxi.”
An upper division clerk said that he would be sharing his car with his next door neighbour, who is a doctor at AIIMS. “Our doctor sahib will drop me to my office in the morning. And I will travel back either with another colleague or in the Delhi Metro.”
