The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Is Government sacrificing KSRTC’s interests?

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Is Government sacrificing KSRTC’s interests?

Anil Kumar Sastry

Transport Department justifies allowing private operators on nationalised routes

Department says KSRTC is incapable of catering to the increased demand
KSRTC says of the 1,500 permits, only about 900 are alive

BANGALORE: Justifying the regularisation of illegal bus permits granted to private operators on nationalised routes, the Transport Department has told the Karnataka High Court that the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation was and is incapable of catering to the increasing demand for transport.

Between 1988 and 2002, the State Transport Authority and Regional Transport Authorities issued hundreds of permits to private players to operate on nationalised routes. Finally, the Transport Department on May 31, 2007, modified several schemes — Bangalore, Bangalore Transport Service (BTS), Kanakapura, Kolar, Bellary, among others, and regularised permits issued to several private operators.

After the Government rejected the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporations’ (KSRTC) appeal against the modification orders, KSRTC approached the Karnataka High Court challenging the modifications.

KSRTC’s argument was that any modification to the scheme should have approval from the Central Government as the corporations were established under the Road Transport Corporations Act, a Central Act. However, in this case, no approval was obtained from the Centre. It also argued that private players were operating only on profitable routes whereas RTCs were compelled to operate on non-profitable routes, and alleged that the modifications were done to favour some private operators.

However, the Department in its statement before the High Court opposed KSRTC’s petition and said the RTCs were not in a position to deploy buses in as many numbers as required due to demand growth.

When the schemes were modified, there were 1,500 buses servicing 1.5 lakh passengers. Several other schemes too were modified and any adverse order by the High Court would affect operation of over 5,000 private buses servicing five lakh passengers.

But, according to KSRTC’s statistics, there were only 1,500 permits, of which only around 900 were alive. Of these 900, private players were operating only around 700 buses and all the RTCs were capable to fill the vacuum if the illegal permits were not regularised. It said many buses operating on these permits in fact ran on nationalised routes and RTCs had no problem to augment their services on these routes.

Financial incapability

As against 1,500 permits and operation of 700 buses (according to the KSRTC), the Department estimated that 5,000 buses need to be deployed if the modification schemes were to be nullified. The cost of these buses would be around Rs. 500 crore and the expenditure on staff would be around Rs. 210 crore. The recurring expenditure for eight years (during the life of a bus) on the staff would be around Rs. 1,680 crore. In all, the RTCs have to bear an expenditure of over Rs. 2,100 crore, the Department argued.

The RTCs were not in a position to do this, the Department said, citing the accumulated losses. KSRTC, North West Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (NWKRTC) and North East Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (NEKRTC) have suffered a cumulative loss of Rs. 163 crore, Rs. 264 crore and Rs. 265 crore respectively, the Department said.

This statement has been made despite BMTC and KSRTC, who have been affected by the modifications, are on the path of profit since 1998-98 and 2000-01 respectively.

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