The recently-concluded Dasara has come as a big revenue booster to the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) whose returns were severely hit by the pandemic in the last two years. The Mysuru division alone has realised a record revenue of ₹4.76 crore running special Dasara operations for ferrying passengers to the city of palaces.
In a span of 10 days, the special buses ferried 6.82 lakh passengers. The revenue and passenger load achieved in 10 days is a record in the history of Mysuru division.
“The returns and passengers travelled were the highest so far in the division’s history. The operations were incident-free and passenger-friendly. The special operations can be a model for the corporation in handling a record number of passengers in a short span of time,” said Ashok Kumar, Divisional Controller, KSRTC, Mysuru.
The Mysuru division operated 271 special buses for handling the Dasara rush both on intercity and intracity routes. “The revenue that we have achieved has come only from 271 buses. We have not included the revenue from the regular route buses. Also, 6.5 lakh passengers were travelling only in these buses since we got the data on travellers as they were special operations,” Mr. Kumar told The Hindu.
The Mysuru division reported record departures on Sunday post-Dasara and the revenue that was realised the next day (on Monday) is included in the total Dasara revenue which was handed over to the central office in Bengaluru.
What is notable is that the operations were “accident-free” and “breakdown-free”. Whenever operations of this nature were run, there would be some amount of limitations. However, the division has documented that the services were free from any complaints.
“This is another factor that needs to be applauded. This achievement gives us a kind of satisfaction of serving the public. The credit goes to the Mysuru team of KSRTC. There were no issues whatsoever from the drivers and conductors in meeting the expectations of handling the record passenger load in a record span of time as the entire staff rose to the occasion and handled the Dasara rush in a professional manner,” the divisional controller explained.
The Mysuru division had to get buses from neighboring districts for handling the rush. Out of 271 buses, 179 were from Mysuru division, 51 from Chamarajnagar division, and 41 from Mandya division. As many as 226 buses were on inter-city operations (largely on the Bengaluru sector) and 45 on intra-city routes (largely to Chamundi Hills, and Brindavan Gardens).
