A traffic jam in Delhi

New Delhi, April 26: Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit today gave the green signal to the controversial bus corridor, which was in danger of being scrapped in the face of rising public pressure.

The BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) — that made the exchequer poorer by over Rs 200 crore for a 5.6km stretch — has been responsible for traffic snarls and a few fatal accidents.

Dikshit, who has a lot at stake with elections round the corner, admitted that the plan might have to be shelved if things do not improve soon.

A high-level meeting was called at the chief minister’s residence today to discuss the fate of the corridor. On Tuesday, the government had given the authorities 48 hours to fix it.

The government has decided to continue with the corridor, but will wait before constructing six other BRT stretches.

“There is not a single problem with the corridor,” said an official present at the meeting. “There are various factors that are causing traffic jams. There is an engineering problem and an issue with traffic lights among others.”

The government now needs to find solutions to these problems.

It has decided to construct two footbridges on the stretch.

Officials in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi have been asked to keep hawkers and stray cattle off the road to ensure they don’t come in the way of speeding cars.

Parallel roads will be built on the stretch so that cars are not caught in the bottleneck for hours. Official figures show there were 14,700 cars on the road between 6am and 7am on Thursday — which is 300 more cars than there were in February.