The Delhi Chief Minister, Mrs. Sheila Dikshit has informed that the state government has fined Tata Motors with Rs 4 crore for the poor maintenance of its low floor bus fleet in the city as there have been reports of six incidences when the DTC buses have caught fire in the last few days.

The company has been instructed to put its 950 buses in order till the month of January. Moreover, the payments of Rs 150 crore has been withhold to Tata for a new lot of 300-odd buses, as an action to ensure that the incidents do not occur in future.

Transport minister, Mr. Arvinder Singh Lovely has said that even a single incident of fire in the future would prompt the government to initiate criminal proceedings against Tata Motors and cancel its annual maintenance contract.

After the incident, a high level meeting, which was chaired by Mrs. Sheela Dikshit and attended by the transport minister, Mr. Arvinder Singh Lovely, DTC managing director, Mr. Naresh Kumar and senior officers from Tata Motors was held to discuss the issue.

Speaking on the outcome of the meeting, Mrs. Sheela Dikshit has informed that the safety is given the priority among all the things and it has been decided that there would be better coordination between DTC and Tata Motors, to maintain the same.

She added that Tata Motors has been told to undertake comprehensive checks on the 950 buses by January 2010 and put in place a plan for regular monitoring of the vehicles.

In the assembly, the opposition leaders criticized the government to infuse huge investments in acquisition of the buses. One of the BJP leaders, Mr. Vijay Kumar Malhotra has accused the government of wasting large sums of money on these vehicles, as each low-floor AC bus was bought for Rs 60 lakh and the non-AC buses for Rs 50 lakh each.

At this, Mr. Arvinder Singh Lovely said that there has been fire in only one incident, which happened due to tyre burst of the bus. And in all other cases, problems occurred due to technical snags and now the buses are back on the roads, after the maintenance.