2500 Kerala buses to go off road from tomorrow

Ma lap pu ram: private bus owners in Kerala are having harrowing time following the steep hike in fuel prices forcing them to call off services to ward off losses. According to bus operators, 2500 private buses in the state have decided to stop services from Sunday. Bus owners have iled applications with various Regional Transport (RT) offices for service stoppage from 30 September. Due to the skyrocketing fuel charges, the operation of services on daily basis ends up huge loss. State government is collecting Rs34,000 every three months as road tax. “To maintain a no-proit-no-loss situation every bus has to ensure a net revenue of Rs5,000 daily. If we stop the service by the end of this month, we can at least save the amount of road tax”, Bus Owner’s Association oficebearers say.

The number of private buses has shrunk from 35,000 to 12,000 in the state. When the bus charge was increased in March, the diesel price was Rs62 and it has reached Rs79 in six months. To continue services, bus owners demand a subsidy for diesel, reduction in road tax and a reasonable increase in the concessional charges levied from students. At present, Kerala has the highest bus fare rate in South India.

Most of the short distance bus services are operating by reducing number of staff and cancelling non-proitable trips. Service on holidays is also cancelled to avoid loss.

To add to the woes of bus operators, a noticeable fall in number of passengers is also reported from all districts, after the devastating lood last month. According to bus operators, passengers have switched over to two wheelers and four wheelers with new models hitting the stands offering fuel eficient vehicles. A large number of regular passengers and long distance passengers are depending on train service.

A bus which runs 500- 600 km needs 110-130 litres of diesel. As the collection will be between Rs10,000 and Rs14,000, the bus operations will have an average loss of Rs1500 due to fuel price hike.

MB Sathyan, president of Kerala State Private Bus Operators Federation, said that private bus industry is going through an ordeal after the lood with the decreased number of passengers and diesel price hike. “If a subsidy for diesel is not granted, the industry is likely to be affected seriously”, he said.