Bus Kahan Hai? — “Where is the bus?” — is the question millions of us ask at the bus stop every day. Buses are how most of Delhi gets around, yet the people who depend on them the most are left waiting the longest. As Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) prepares a new bus route plan, Bus Kahan Hai is our public awareness and citizen deliberation campaign to make sure the buses actually reach the people and places that need them.
Why this campaign
Buses are how most of Delhi gets around. Workers, students, women running homes, daily-wage earners, and all the people who keep this city going rely on buses the most. And they are the ones left waiting the longest: buses don't come on time, there is too much crowding to board, they lack bus routes to places where they need to go, and long, uncertain journeys push people towards e-rickshaws and other options that are expensive and difficult to afford.
Poor bus service is not a small inconvenience. It takes people's time, money, and dignity, every single day. Bus Kahan Hai is about putting that everyday reality at the centre of how Delhi Government is planning its future bus routes.
What's happening now
Right now, TRIP Centre of IIT Delhi is conducting scientific study for route rationalisation and to prepare the new bus route plan which they will recommend to the DTC. The research team is studying where people need to travel, which areas are poorly connected, how often buses should run, where the latent (or currently suppressed) demand for bus use exists. This is a real chance for citizens to pariticipate and address the issues of poor bus connectivity.
So we started Bus Kahan Hai in close collaboration with the research team at TRIP Centre, IIT Delhi to help make sure the new routes reach every colony and basti, and to bring riders' own experiences and demands into the planning. We believe that the people who wait for the bus and care about public transport know best what all the plan should include.
At the same time, our community campaigners are on the ground across Delhi’s outskirts, documenting informal settlements, unauthorised colonies, villages, and other areas that often remain invisible in official planning processes. They are speaking directly with residents, mapping everyday travel needs, identifying places with little or no bus access, and collecting evidence on gaps in connectivity. This grassroots effort helps ensure that the route planning process is informed by the lived experiences of people.
First public meeting on June 6, 2026
On Saturday, 6 June 2026, we held the first public meeting of the campaign. It was online and open to anyone in Delhi. About 100 people and representatives of organisations registered and 50+ citizens actively participated in the meeting.
Prof. Rahul Goel of the TRIP Centre, IIT Delhi explained how Delhi's bus network is planned, and why people's everyday experiences and local knowledge have to be at the centre of a fair and useful route plan. Mukta Naik from the Main Bhi Dilli campaign joined us and shared how residents have pushed their way into Delhi's formal planning processes before.
The most important part, though, was hearing from the people who came. Participants spoke about what they live with every day: no bus route in their locality, bus stops that are missing or barely usable, no direct route to the places that matter to them, services so unreliable they are forced into costlier options, and the steady drain all of this puts on a household's budget.
The TRIP Centre team is now compiling these suggestions and feeding them into the route planning study, and we will share a summary back soon.
Do this one thing: tell DTC where you need a bus
DTC has opened an official form to gather the routes people actually need — and the responses will directly shape the new route plan. The more people who fill it in, especially from areas that are badly served today, the harder it becomes to leave those neighbourhoods off the map.
Please share it with neighbours, friends, co-workers and your RWA — anyone who depends on buses, or wishes they could.
Stay with the campaign
Join our WhatsApp group for updates and to hear about the next public meeting, and help spread the word with #BusKahanHai.
Questions, or want to organise in your area? Write to us at ptfdelhi@gmail.com or join the Forum.