Delhi's last-mile problem — the stubborn gap between a metro station or bus stop and the front door of a neighbourhood — has long been the city's quiet urban failure. On Sunday, 27 September 2026, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta put the spotlight firmly on a scheme designed to close that gap: DEVI Buses, a dedicated service aimed at carrying commuters into underserved pockets of the capital that mainstream transit has historically bypassed.

Posting on X under the hashtag #SevaSankalpAbhiyan ('Service-Commitment Campaign'), CM Gupta framed the initiative as a dual promise: 'Seva in action, Sankalp towards a better-connected Delhi.' The message was deliberate — positioning DEVI Buses not merely as an addition to the fleet but as a statement of governance philosophy tied to the ongoing Seva Sankalp Abhiyan, the current administration's campaign around service-oriented delivery.

What DEVI Buses Are Meant to Fix

Delhi operates one of Asia's largest metro networks, yet millions of residents in outlying colonies, resettlement clusters, and dense inner-city lanes remain poorly served by feeder connectivity. The 'last mile' — often a kilometre or two that forces commuters onto auto-rickshaws, e-rickshaws, or simply their feet — drives up costs, time, and pollution. DEVI Buses are positioned as a cleaner, more accessible bridge: smaller or re-routed services threading into exactly those neighbourhoods that the trunk network skips. The push aligns with a broader national pattern. Indian cities have increasingly leaned on feeder-bus models and electric mobility to complement metro infrastructure and chip away at private vehicle dominance. Delhi Transport Corporation began phased fleet modernisation — prioritising CNG and electric buses — in procurement cycles starting around 2018–2020, laying some groundwork for the current expansion. The National Clean Air Programme framework has also kept pressure on state governments to demonstrate measurable shifts away from polluting modes.

The Seva Sankalp Framing

The hashtag choice is not incidental. Seva Sankalp Abhiyan functions as a branding umbrella for the Gupta administration's public-service outreach, and tying a transit scheme to it signals that the government wants urban mobility to read as a welfare issue, not just an infrastructure one. Reaching the neighbourhoods that 'need it most' — the CM's own phrasing — is a political as much as a logistical claim: it asserts that this government is turning its attention to commuters who felt invisible to earlier regimes. For Delhi commuters and neighbourhood residents in underconnected areas, the immediate question is routes and frequency. Exact operational details — how many buses, which corridors, what the rollout timeline looks like — remain to be confirmed as the scheme scales. What to watch next: route-expansion metrics, integration with existing DTC and metro services, and whether the next state budget earmarks dedicated funds for fleet growth. If DEVI Buses deliver on the connectivity promise, they could redefine daily mobility for hundreds of thousands of Delhiites who today pay a premium — in time and money — just to reach a mainstream transit node. That is the real test of the sankalp.