Govt releases Rs 132 cr to help struggling RTCs

Nischith N. | NT

Bengaluru: The state government has released funds to help the state road transport corporations (RTC), including BMTC and KSRTC, to tide over the financial crisis they are currently facing. One of the major liabilities for these corporations has been the issue of free pass for a section of students.

According to the reports, the government has released a total of Rs 132 crore to all the corporations. This may be used to pay salary arrears, as nonpayment of salaries for employees of all four road transport corporations (KSRTC, BMTC, NWKRTC and NEKRTC) during Sankaranthi had caused much embarrassment to the government.

Employees had expressed disappointment over not getting full salary and demanded advance payment of at least Rs 15,000. The children of some of the employees had, through video messages on social media, appealed to pay the salary so that they could celebrate festivals like others.“Free bus pass was an extra burden for the corporations and KSRTC and BMTC were the biggest losers. Also, in order to compensate for losses due to high fuel prices, both officials of the Karnataka State Road Transport corporation and the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) had asked the government to increase bus fares.

Now the government has released some funds, but it is not sufficient and they should release more funds to cover our salary dues,” said Anand, a BMTC driver. In recent days, the four corporations of the State have requested around Rs 975 crore to pay salaries. From the Rs 132 crore released by the government, Kar nataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) has received Rs 65.67 crore, while Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) received Rs 2.85 crore. The North Western Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (NWKRTC) and Kalyana Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (KKRTC) have received Rs 33.80 crore and Rs 30.19 crore, respectively.

The government has been announcing free passes in their budgets and increased the number of beneficiaries. A total of Rs 337 crore was allocated for issuing free bus pass by all the four corporations. “This amount is only for issuing SC and ST passes and the remaining amount will be released in installments. Until the last academic year, the scheme was applicable to only Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (SC/ST) students. After certain sections of society raised objections, it was extended to few more sections and overall the number is 800 cr plus for all Corporations,” says a KSRTC senior official.

“Because of the lockdown, the corporations are running a skeletal service and revenue generation has come down to almost nil. Also non-operation of buses had resulted in the four RTCs incurring a daily revenue loss of Rs 20 crore. So the government should release some more funds,” the official added.