Revenue crunch, and the shortage of drivers and conductors have hit the expansion of KSRTC operations in Mysuru even as this year’s ‘most-active’ monsoon affected the returns from the inter-city and inter-city services.
After the merger of the urban and rural divisions of the KSRTC in Mysuru, efforts are on for improving the amalgamated division’s performance with the division earning a sum of ₹1.13 crore a day almost on a daily basis since last two months. However, the returns don’t match the revenue earned before COVID-19.
The KSRTC authorities argue that the revenue is usually less in ‘Ashada’ season with no events like marriages happening. In ‘Shravana’ season too, the revenue is by and large less and the passenger load picks up only ahead of the Gowri-Ganesha festival and goes on till Dasara season.
Nevertheless, the division is yet to reach the revenue of pre-COVID-19 days which was over ₹2 crore a day. The AC bus services are largely hit – both on inter-city and inter-state routes. The movement of passengers, barring the Bengaluru stretch, is not very encouraging on the AC bus services such as Airavatha and Ambari.
“The recent rains, floods and landslips in some parts of the State, especially in coastal Karnataka, hit the services with the people putting off their travel plans. The torrential rains led to cancellation of bookings. The operations have resumed on all inter-state routes post-pandemic but we are unable to see the kind of response that we used to see before the pandemic,” said Divisional Controller Ashok Kumar.
He told The Hindu that as many as 450 trips are being operated to Bengaluru from Mysuru now and this includes the AC buses. The operations on the Bengaluru route have almost touched pre-COVID-19 frequency since 500 trips were made on the Bengaluru stretch before the pandemic. The passenger load on this stretch is also encouraging.
The services on nearly 100 schedules on the intra-city routes in Mysuru city have been suspended owing to shortage of drivers and conductors.
“We are facing a shortage of nearly 200 drivers and conductors. There are buses but no staff to operate them. With the current situation remaining unachievable for appointments, we are looking forward to the steps taken by the government in the days ahead,” he said.
Mr Kumar, however, said the cancellation of operations on certain routes is based on lack of patronage but minimal operations have continued on requests for the benefit of school and college students despite the routes remaining economically unviable.
The divisional controller said there were plans to rope in recently-retired drivers running the buses but none responded and the idea did not make headway. “There is no provision for outsourcing of the staff in KSRTC,” Mr Kumar clarified, and added that there are no plans to expand the fleet and add new services in view of the current financial situation and staff shortage.
