Tamil Nadu Government has constituted a high-level committee for evolving a new pension scheme for employees of transport corporations on the lines of the one in place for TNEB workers, Transport Minister K. N. Nehru has said.
The corporation had set up a corpus of Rs.800 crore for the present scheme and the interest was used to pay pension.
As the number of employees who retired increased, the interest from the fund would not be sufficient to meet the pension expenditure and hence the new scheme was being planned.
Delcaring open a depot of the Tamilnadu State Transport Coporation (TNSTC) at Manamelkudi, 75 km from here last evening, he said the committee was already working on the new pension scheme.
He said on various parameters, including on break down, zero trip losses and replacement of old buses, the transport corporations had made tremendous progress.
The strength of daily fleet users had gone up from 1.96 crore from 1.64 crore four years ago. TNSTC offered best services in the country despite losses and its tariff was also low at 28 paise per km for ordinary bus and Re.1 a km for volvo buses, he said.
Mr. Nehru said depots would be set up at Alankudi, Tirumayyam and Keeranur.