PRTC’s lockdown loss: ₹36 crore and counting

PATIALA: After barely surviving a decade-long financial crisis, Pepsu Road Transport Corporation (PRTC) is once again suffering losses at the hands of the lockdown situation.

The PRTC has faced a revenue loss of around ₹36 crore in the 42-day long hiatus so far. The daily average loss has been pegged at around ₹85 lakh.

It may be mentioned that once on the verge of extinction, PRTC came back on track both financially and institutionally last year, after it started recording operational profit for the first time in the last 10 years.

Just before the state government disbanded public transport services in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic on March 20, the corporation had recorded its daily receipt of income worth ₹1.40 crore (monthly income estimated around ₹42 crore).

PRTC deputy controller (finance) Prem Chand said since the lockdown, the corporation is facing an estimated loss of revenue worth ₹80 lakh per day.

“The figure is calculated after deducting the operational cost (including maintenance and expenses on diesel) from last generated per day income of ₹1.40 crore,” he said.

The deputy controller said since there has been no income from the past over 40 days, they have somehow managed to fulfil committed expenses of worth ₹46 crore per month.

One of the officials, seeking anonymity, said the corporation has exhausted its savings and funds to pay salaries and pensions to its employees for the months of March and April.

“The financial situation is so grim that the PRTC would cramp to arrange funds to meet its committed liabilities in the coming months,” the official said.

Meanwhile, PRTC chairman K K Sharma said the present period could be termed as the ‘golden era’ of PRTC, but tough days were ahead for the corporation due to the Covid-19 mess as far as the finances were concerned.

“We will chalk out a strategy once the situation gets normalised. It is going to be a huge challenge to bring back PRTC financially where it was before the lockdown,” he said.

Sharma said presently, they are providing all possible logistics to the state government to deal with the pandemic situation.

It may be mentioned that in the past two years, besides tapping increase in daily receipt and monopoly routes, the imagebuilding of PRTC among the people helped the corporation to generate a sizeable profit.

For the first time in past decade,Pepsu Road Transport Corporation was running its full fleet of 1,073 buses under its nine depots – Ludhiana, Kapurthala, Chandigarh, Patiala, Bathinda, Budhlada, Barnala, Faridkot and Sangrur.