New Delhi: Delhi on Friday got a batch of 100 new low-floor high capacity buses, nearly a decade after these were first introduced in the national capital during the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

The buses were flagged off by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal from the Rajghat Depot here and he said within the next one year, 9,000 buses will be plying on Delhi's roads.

The tender for electric buses has also been passed and these will be procured by the end of March, he said at the event which was also attended by Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot and senior officers of the department.

"Hundreds of new buses have been flagged off in the last few months, and I have been told that low-floor buses have been deployed on the roads of Delhi after a span of 10 years," the chief minister said.

On the attacks by opposition parties BJP and Congress during the recently-held assembly polls on the state of transport facilities in the city, Kejriwal said "some people would say buses were flagged off due to elections, but I want to tell them that the buses are being deployed even after the elections."

The 100 new low-floor buses were procured under the Cluster Scheme of the Delhi Integrated Multi Modal System (DIMTS). With this, the total number of public buses has increased to nearly 6,200, of which about 3,800 are of the the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC).

Under the Cluster Scheme only standard floor buses were being run till now. It is planned that 1,000 low-floor air-conditioned buses will be procured by the government under this scheme.

The DTC will also procure 1,000 low-floor buses, officials said.

The new low-floor buses are equipped with fire detection systems, remote monitoring systems, GPS trackers, panic buttons, CCTV cameras and hydraulic lifts and wheelchair ramps for the convenience of differently-abled passengers.

The chief minister said his government is working to transform the transport system of the city into a model and modern one that will serve as an example for the country.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.

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