Covid down, dream buses to ride again

Nischith N | NT

With Covid cases on the decline and life slowly returning to normal across the state and in neighbouring states, Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) is planning to increase services of its premium buses which was trimmed down because of a sharp fall in passengers during the pandemic.

The transport corporation has been named the best public transport company in the country for its services and its top-notch premium buses. The maintenance of these buses proved too costly during the pandemic when transport services especially the premium segment were curtailed and most of them had to be kept idle at bus stations. The withdrawal of services also led to losses for the corporation.

Of 530 premium buses in its fleet, the KSRTC runs less than 330 buses since operations were allowed. An official said even interstate services proved unsustainable because of Covid rules. But now, KSRTC officials are working hard to ensure that premium bus services are increased after the state government recently ordered withdrawal of all Covid curbs.

"This is an ideal opportunity for the corporation after the lean period when COVID rules were in place. Buses used to go to the bus stand only after receiving double digit booking of seats. Now that most of the Covid norms have been withdrawn, our operation numbers will shoot up and we hope to garner more revenue" said a senior KSRTC official.

In 2002, KSRTC was the first state-run bus corporation in India to introduce a premium (Volvo) single axle AV seater under the Airavat brand. In 2009, it introduced Ambaari (Corona single-axle AC sleeper) buses. According to reports, KSRTC has lost around 60 percent of its premium bus passengers after the pandemic outbreak.

The corporation is spending 55 rupees per kilometre as operational cost on running such buses and in return, it is receiving only 45 rupees per kilometre. Officials say that the buses are in demand on the Chennai, Hyderabad, Tirupati, and Ernakulam routes and as many as 25 buses used to operate from Bengaluru every day. But due to the pandemic, the demand for seats had dropped and the buse numbers came down to 4 per day which pushed the corporation into losses.

Speaking to News Trail, Prabhakar Reddy, Chief Traffic Manager (Operation) said, “Premium services have been functioning at very low capacity during the pandemic. Service capacity of the fleet was reduced by operating only 40 percent of buses. Before Covid, there was a high demand for buses operating on inter-state routes like Chennai, Hyderabad, Tirupati, and Ernakulam. Now there is demand only for intrastate routes like Bengaluru to Kundapura, Madakeri, Shivamogga and a few other districts. This is directly hitting revenue".

Experts say that those who used to travel by public transport before the pandemic, have now moved away and prefer using their private vehicles. "It is learnt that nearly 1,500 people from Kanakapura and surrounding areas come to Bengaluru for work daily and the same number of people continued to avail our services during the pandemic relying on normal bus services. But premium service commuters are from a different segment and have the work from home option with many of them returning to their native states and reluctant to come back. Now the government has withdrawn the curbs and we will try our best to operate all premium buses and provide best services to commuters," Prabhakar Reddy added.

According to a KSRTC official report, Pre-Covid premium bus revenue was as high as Rs 1.5 Crore per day and now it has come down to Rs 50 lakh per day.