PUNE: Despite around 10,000 people being denied a ride daily by Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML) buses for not having a full vaccination report or universal travel pass, the transport body has jumped back to its pre-pandemic levels in terms of daily earnings and on-road buses — the fastest this year after cases started declining once more.
“On Monday, PMPML’s daily earnings were Rs1.50 crore — highest in two years. Back on March 13, 2020, the daily earnings touched around Rs1.40 crore. During the third wave, the number of buses was brought down to almost 1,300 from January 10 onwards. However now, we have started running 1,600 buses in all. Compared to the earlier two waves, we have been able to recover the fastest this time round,” said Dattatraya Zende, PMPML’s traffic manager.