About one-fourth of KURTC low-floor buses off the road

As many as 133 of the 603 low-floor buses procured with the financial assistance from the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) and operated by the Kerala Urban Road Transport Corporation (KURTC) are off the road owing to lack of timely repairs and other hitches.

Schedules operated by these buses have come to a standstill for several weeks causing inconvenience to commuters. The KURTC, a special purpose vehicle set up under the State-owned Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) with Ernakulam as the headquarters in 2014 to take care of the operation and management of these sleek buses, is incurring a loss of Rs.4.8 lakh daily.

The revenue from the ticket collection from these buses would have come in handy for the KSRTC that is in deep financial crisis owing to the falling revenue from the fleet.

Of the 133 low-floor buses that is lying in the various depots, 29 are air-conditioned. As the KURTC had not been able to run these buses, 12 schedules operated by the air-conditioned buses and 34 by the non-air-conditioned are not being run now.

In all, the KURTC has 190 air-conditioned low-floor buses and 413 non-air-conditioned buses in the fleet at present.

Over the years, the KSRTC had trained 71 mechanics to take care of the snags of the air-conditioned buses and another 425 in the non-air-conditioned buses.

But the KURTC was depending on private automobile firm for the repair of the air-conditioned buses. Works of the non-air-conditioned buses were taken care in various depots by trained mechanics.

The inability to make available spare-parts is learnt to be the reason for the delay in undertaking repairs of the non-air-conditioned buses. It is learnt that the KURTC will need over a month to repair these buses and make them fit for service.