With the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) neck deep in debt and eating into the State’s revenue to stay afloat, efforts are under way to rope in private operators who are willing to operate bus services on a Net-Cost Contract (NCC) basis on inter-State routes where the agency has limited presence.
At present, the transport utility is short of 300 buses on long-distance routes. They include 100 buses that are needed to operate from cities in Kerala to metros like Bengaluru and Chennai, based on agreements reached with RTCs of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. An Expression of Interest (EoI) will shortly be floated in this regard. The operators will have to pay a license fee to the KSRTC, adhere to rate fixed by the government and operate under the livery of KSRTC. The proposal is pending with the government, especially since the Finance department ought to be consulted on matters like tax exemption, informed sources said.
The move to rope in bus operators on NCC basis has been necessitated since the KSRTC, plagued by its inability to pay salary and pension on time, is not in a position to procure new buses, while a bulk of the approximately 5,000 buses are nearing the end of their life cycle. Subsequently, operation of inter-State buses in many routes has been confined to weekend. The NCC system will help KSRTC ply buses on sought-after routes, where it has got permits but is not in a position to operate its own buses. This will also help rein in fleecing by bus operators, most of whom are registered outside the State, who charge as much as ₹5,000 from passengers on buses from cities and towns of Kerala to Bengaluru and Chennai during festive seasons. It will also help usher in a regulated environment in long-distance routes, they added.
Given that the number of private buses in the State has dropped from about 40,000 a decade and a half ago to less than 12,000 at present, they said the KSRTC is not in a position to step in as a substitute due to the widening revenue-expenditure gap.
Key benefits
Welcoming such Public-Private Partnership (PPP) initiatives in the public transport sector, Adarsh Kumar Nair, who retired as Joint RTO from Motor Vehicles’ Department and is now the Director of SCMS Institute for Road Safety and Training (SiRST), said buses operating on the basis of NCC model were successfully tried out in many States and in cities like Indore – a city operating one of the best bus networks in the country.
“The benefits to KSRTC include no expense on capital to procure buses and to augment bus depots, savings on salary and pension and no operation and maintenance expense, while at the same time benefiting from license fee,” Mr. Nair, who was part of the team that worked to seamlessly integrate Kochi Metro with the bus network, said.
