With the inter-State services of the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) being suspended to check the spread of COVID-19, the cash-strapped State transport undertaking has plunged into deep crisis.
The services were suspended on Saturday following the restrictions imposed in Tamil Nadu. The KSRTC had already withdrawn its services to Bengalaru. Poor patronage is another reason facing the KSRTC in the inter-State routes, according to Transport Minister A.K. Saseendran.
But, the KSRTC management cannot withdraw all the services at one stroke as the Railways had suspended all the train operations till March 31. The private stage carriers has also scaled down their services and Kassargod district is now out of bounds.
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A top KSRTC official said the move was to discourage long distance journey of citizens to contain the spread of the virus. “All the buses lying in bus stations and depots that had reached from other units on Sunday morning will return back after the ‘janata curfew’ ends at 9 p.m. The buses will pick up commuters,’’ he said.
To discourage the travel, the KSRTC will limit the services in the inter-district sector and operate buses on demand. But, the officials of the operating wing said this was not feasible.
The KSRTC was able to generate only ₹3.23 crore from the 3,520 buses it operated on March 19 and only ₹3.04 crore from the 3,396 buses it plied on March 20. The revenue from the fleet will further drop with the ban on inter-State services and poor patronage and will force the management to seek government assistance to pay salary. The fall in the revenue has come at a time when the KSRTC faced ₹43.49 crore revenue deficit gap in February.
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