Giving in to popular demand, the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) on Thursday decided to distribute 500 ml water bottles to passengers travelling on its premium services, Airavat, AC sleeper and Flybus.
The amenity had been stopped in February citing high costs of bottle procurement and wastage. However, the decision attracted a lot of criticism by passengers, who demanded that water bottles be provided to them as the service was offered by a majority of premium private operators.
Speaking at a function in the city to announce new passenger amenities, KSRTC chairman K. Gopala Pujari said around 29,000 passengers in 626 premium services operated daily would be given water bottles at no cost. This will result in the corporation procuring 1 crore bottles a year at a rate of ₹4.3 per bottle. Earlier, this procurement rate was ₹5.43 per bottle.
The corporation is also planning to install reverse osmosis-based water purification plants at all major bus stations, which will provide 1 litre of water for ₹1. Around 4,000 passengers using 104 morning services will also be given newspapers free of cost, the statement said.
Time travel to be reduced
The transport corporation will install FASTag chips on its 8,400-strong fleet of buses. This will allow buses to use earmarked lanes for automatic payment at toll booths across the State, which is expected to bring down total travel time and fuel costs.
Currently, around ₹5 crore is paid by KSRTC every month at toll booths across its operational area. “We will get a discount of 7.5% from the National Highways Authority of India, which will save around ₹4.5 crore per year. This process will start by May-end and end in two months,” KSRTC Managing Director S.R. Umashankar said.
