Travelling by RTC? There is no insurance for passengers

The Road Transport Corporation had paid an amount of `32.5 crore in the span of three years from 2015 as compensation towards victims of bus accidents. There is no insurance cover for passengers who opt for RTC buses to travel, whether reserved or unreserved.

The Railways, on the other hand provides insurance to its passengers, if their tickets are booked through the IRCTC website. The corporation is of the opinion that paying compensation is more profitable than paying premiums every year to insurance companies.

The official spokesperson of RTC, Kiran Reddy said that earlier there were plans regarding including the insurance amount in the price of the ticket for every passenger, but that did not work out for various reasons

The Kerala Transport Corporation has also introduced insurance cover for its passengers. The decision was taken in 2015 and the state’s corporation is paying annual premiums every year to the New India Assurance Company.

According to the Motor Vehicles Act, there is no mandate that they have to take insurance. At the end of the day, it is RTC that has to take the call depending on the requirement. RTC depot managers decide the compensation amounts, depending on the severity of the case.

An RTC official on condition of anonymity said, “It is really difficult for the corporation to pay premiums annually to the insurance companies for all the 10,500 buses in the RTC. The companies charge a hefty amount, so we have opted to pay the compensation amount rather than the insurance premiums. All these accidents are unfortunate events and we do not know what will happen when.”

“If we choose to pay compensation, only at the time of accidents we have to pay and if days are good there won't be any additional burden. However, if we choose insurance then there will be an additional burden on the corporation every year, which we cannot afford right now,” he said.

A highly-placed source in the Corporation said that usually compensations are given by the court to the victims based on the severity and the status of the person injured from the corporation’s pocket, which would be around `2lakh to `3 lakh in case of death.

There are fixed guidelines from the previous court judgements.

RTC HAS paid an amount of `32.5cr as compensation to victims.THERE IS no insurance for RTC passengers.ACCORDING TO Motor Vehicle Act, there is no mandate on RTC to opt for insurance.RTC CHOOSES to pay compensation rather than premium to insurance companies.RTC compensations are mostly paid through the court.