After operating partially for 15 days due to the strike, the road transport corporations on Thursday ran most of the buses in the fleet – over 16,000. The Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation ran 4,900 buses in the city, much to the relief of commuters. RTCs said they incurred a revenue loss of over ₹280 crore due to the strike.
Officials predicted that with the rising number of COVID-19 cases and restrictions imposed on occupancy, ridership will fall significantly in the coming days.
“On Thursday, we operated 90% of non–AC bus schedules within the State. But ridership was very low,” said an official with KSRTC. “In the coming days, ridership will drop further, which will impact our revenue generation. We may manage to meet fuel expenses and partial salaries of staff.”
Demand for inter-State buses has also reduced. “Barring Andhra Pradesh, inter-state Services have been badly impacted due to the pandemic. Neighbouring States have imposed strict rules to curb the spread and we are not in a position to run buses as per our schedule,” the official said.
In Bengaluru, passengers were relieved. “The bus strike caused a lot of problems for commuters. As per the government rule, standing in buses is not allowed because of which waiting time has increased at bus stops. The BMTC should have more buses depending on demand,” said Nayana R., a commuter. An official said: “On Thursday, we received reports of some bus crew allowing standing passengers. Instructions have been given to drivers to adhere to the government guidelines.”
