Southern States - Tamil Nadu   

Government firm on transport privatisation

By S. Vydhianathan

CHENNAI Dec. 7. Following repeated adjournments obtained by various transport corporation trade unions in the privatisation of bus routes case, the Tamil Nadu Government has requested the Madras High Court to allow it to conduct a public hearing, which is a statutory requirement.

The Government last year announced a decision to hand over 50 per cent of the routes belonging to various transport corporations to private operators and fixed a date for the public hearing.

But the unions challenged the government decision in the High Court. They wanted the court to hear their views before allowing the Government to conduct the public hearing, fixed for December 17 last year.

Every time the case came up for hearing, the unions sought an adjournment, thereby delaying the whole process, a senior official said.

The Government has appealed to the court to dismiss the unions' petition and allow it to conduct the public hearing.

After the hearing, the Government would identify the routes to be privatised.

A committee had been constituted to identify routes for transfer to private operators through open tenders and to fix the upset price for identified routes.

Officials were confident that there would be a high demand even for routes, which made a loss due to heavy overheads.

In phases, 50 per cent of the services on high revenue earning routes would be `auctioned' to the highest bidders and the money utilised for paying workers, who opted for voluntary retirement.

At present, about 6,000 routes are operated by the corporations with a fleet strength of about 16,800 buses.

In the last one year, some transport corporations turned the corner and their financial position improved, thanks to the various measures adopted, including restricting the number of services on uneconomical routes, clubbing of routes and avoiding competition among corporations on the same route.

An improvement in the financial position of the corporations would not mean that the Government was reconsidering the move.

It was a policy decision and there was no question of going back on it. But for the court stay, the issue would have been over by this time, they added.

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