Travelling in Delhi:

I had come to Delhi (from Mumbai) for first time in month of April. Before coming to delhi I had worked for small period in Chennai and Coimbatore. When I arrived New Delhi station I expected the station to be good and well maintained like that of Dadar and CST station of Mumbai. I thought that since Delhi is capital city it must be having much better facilities for traveling and must be well organized. But I was shocked to see the situation in and around Delhi station. It was quite dirty and whole station was stinking. It was too crowded, like of most of the railway stations of big cities, but it was least organized and no one helped when asked for directions. Anyhow I came out of station and was amazed to see Cycle rickshaws which you see in rural areas. Paharganj side of railway station was to crowded due to these cycle rickshaws. I took one rickshaw to go to hotel on Kutub Road (which company had booked) behind Sheila Cinema. It is walking distance from Station (I never knew that) and for this rickshaw wala charged me 25 Rs.

I had to travel to Laxmi Nagar, Chawri Bazar and Gurgaon to meet my clients. After very bad experience from Auto rickshaws I started traveling in bus. Once I went to Asharam by auto from New Delhi station for that I paid 110 Rs(that too after bargaining. Auto driver was asking for 150 Rs). I was pretty happy with my bargaining skills as I had saved 40 Rs by bargaining. Later I came to know from my friend that the fare is not more than 50 Rs. All the autos have meters installed on them but they never use it. So if you are in Delhi and want to travel in auto rickshaw then first ask the fare and then bargain. Unlike in Mumbai where you don’t have to bother about this; all the autos use meter for fare.

Buses are another nuisance. I was there in Delhi for 1 month and then I came back again to stay permanently (for job) in month of July. At that time I was staying in Vivekanand Puri near Karol Bagh. I used to catch bus from there to go to my office on Asaf Ali Road. Now, in Delhi there are two kinds of buses. One is DTC and another is private. DTC buses are govt buses and usually preferred by people. It stops only at the bus stop and the drivers drive pretty fast (though rashly). So if you are on DTC then don’t worry. You will be on time to your office.
The only negative point is that the bus conductor nicely sits on the back seat and you have to go to him to take tickets. In buses of Mumbai and most of the other places you have to sit and the conductor will come to you to give the ticket.

Another one is Private buses. They offer worst kind of services. First amazing thing I encountered was that they don’t move until the bus is full. That is if you have entered the bus then it won’t move for 10 mins or more. The bus people first stuff the entire bus and then they move. That’s not enough. At every bus stop they again stop and wait for the passengers to fill it. In this manner they stop for few minutes on all major stops. If you don’t know which bus to catch then don’t ask private bus people for help. They will tell you to sit in their bus even if does not go to that place. And then after sometime of travel they will tell you to get down and catch another one. Always ask people standing on bus stop for help. They will be give correct information.

Apart from this, the buses of Delhi are very dirty and stink too much. Every now and then you can see people vomiting out of window which makes a very awry scene (yuck…). In evening most of the time you can spot 5 or 6 people half drunk and traveling. Almost half of the Delhi eats Gutka and its stink is all over in air when the bus is crowded. In my initial days in Delhi traveling in Bus was a nightmare (though I am used to it a bit now).

I hope Delhi administration does something for this and provide transport facility like that of BEST in Mumbai or like that in Chennai and Coimbatore.