Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar and Ashok Kumar

NEW DELHI: Following another fire in a low-floor Delhi Transport Corporation bus in Moti Nagar here on Thursday, the Delhi Government swung into action and hauled up Tata Motors which is responsible for the maintenance of these buses. It also constituted a four-member committee to look into the causes of mishaps involving the newly-acquired buses.

New Delhi: After the recent case of fire in a Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) bus running on a school route, the government has drawn up an elaborate plan to make the entire fleet leakage proof. All buses which have undergone checks will now sport stickers on the front windscreen for easy identification.

Special enforcement drive would be started against all commercial vehicles for checking documents related to CNG, registration certificates, pollution among others
Delhi transport minister Arvinder Singh Lovely on Monday stated that special enforcement drive would be started against all commercial vehicles for checking documents related to CNG, registration certificates, pollution among others.

This is the third such incident of a CNG-run bus catching fire in the capital in the past one week
Yet another lowfloor DTC CNG bus caught fire near Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital on Monday morning. The DTC has taken a serious view of the accident and has asked the private manufacturers to do the needful.

A CNG van, carrying three children of class I and II, caught fire in an accident on Saturday at about 7.15 am in Ghatlodia area. However, the driver stopped the van immediately and rescued all the children before the van was reduced to a metal skeleton. The Maruti Omni van was on its way back after dropping students of Little Flower Primary School in Ghatlodia. It was on its way to drop three children to a nursery nearby. The driver, Ashish Patel, became alert when he smelled of burning electric wires in the van. He quickly stopped the van and took all the children out of it. Within minutes the van caught fire and was engulfed in flames near Heerabaug cross-roads. A fire official present at the spot said, "Once the fire was controlled, we checked the combustion section of the engine. As there was a leakage of lubricating oil, the van caught fire after an electric spark from the spark plug. If the fire had reached the chamber where the gas is filled, the van would have blasted off immediately.'

Gurgaon: About 40 passengers had a narrow escape on Saturday evening when the CNG fuelled Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) bus in which they were travelling went up in flames near the Management Development Institute(MDI) in Gurgaon. Fire department officials said that initial investigations have shown that the CNG bus caught fire because of a leak in the gas cylinder. According to eyewitnesses, the bus, which plies on the Karol Bagh-Gurgaon route, caught fire around 6 pm, after it reached the MDI Chowk on Mehrauli Gurgaon road. No one was hurt as all the passengers had got down from the bus before the mishap took place.

EPCA has been monitoring the implementation of the CNG programme in Delhi since its inception. During this period, it has made special efforts to upgrade the safety inspection system for CNG buses and has accordingly issued directives from time to time to the concerned agencies to undertake remedial measures.

In response to the reports on fire incidents in CNG buses in Delhi, EPCA had constituted an expert committee on May 2, 2006 to investigate the problem. This report has analysed the root cause of bus fire incidents, identified the manufacturing deficiencies and defects pertaining to the engine and sub-system design/ electric installations and electric wiring/gas piping and joints etc.

This report is in addition to EPCA report no 15 on Assessment and prevention of gas leakage from CNG buses (July 2005). It takes into account the affidavit on behalf of the Transport Department GNCT of Delhi, October 2005 and Delhi Transport Corporation, October 2005. In addition, it reviews the recently reported incidents of CNG bus fires to examine the weaknesses and problems.

In response to the media reports that nearly 70 percent of the CNG buses in Delhi have been found to be leaking CNG, the Honb

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