BENGALURU: The Shakti scheme, which offers free travel to women in government buses and is one of the first guarantee schemes of the Congress-led state government, has come as a gift for the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) as its traffic revenue for 2023-24 witnessed a jump and stood at Rs 3,930 crore.
KSRTC Managing Director Anbu Kumar said, “The total traffic revenue of KSRTC was Rs 2,738 crore in 2016, Rs 2,975 crore in 2017, Rs 3,131 crore in 2018, Rs 3,182 crore in 2019, Rs 1,569 crore in 2020 (dip due to Covid-19), Rs 2,037 crore in 2021 and Rs 3,349 crore in 2022. After Shakti, the revenue for 2023 is Rs 3,930 crore, excluding April and May as the scheme was rolled out in June.”
He said that from June 2023 to May 2024, the total traffic revenue was Rs 4,809 crore and he attributed it to the increase in non-Shakti passengers. While Shakti revenue is 42.5 per cent (Rs 2,044 crore), non-Shakti revenue is 57.5 per cent (Rs 2,764 crore). “When a female passenger uses our service, she is not alone all the time. She is accompanied by her husband or children, thereby increasing the non-Shakti revenue,” he explained.
“Earlier, our daily revenue was around Rs 9.7 crore, which has now jumped to Rs 13.9 crore. Further, there were dull days like Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and the load factor was around 50-60 percent earlier. But after Shakti, our load factor (number of seats filled) is over 85 per cent and there are no dull days now. Also, the load factor is not high only during peak hours, but non-peak hours too. All these helped increase the revenue,” he added.
Kumar said KSRTC has made this record without any fare hike and despite the cost of diesel going up to Rs 90 per litre.
RTC staff, unsung heroes behind Shakti success
Bus drivers and conductors, mechanics and all the staff of the four bus corporations - Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC), Kalyana-Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (KKRTC), North West Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (NWKRTC) and Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) -- strived day and night and faced many hassles to make the Shakti scheme a success.
Representatives of the KSRTC Staff and Workers Federation said that despite a shortage of 14,000 employees and shortage of buses, the Shakti scheme was launched without any preparation. Employees too had not imagined that they would have to cater to such a large number of passengers and faced many hassles to make the scheme a success. KSRTC MD Anbu Kumar said that without the support of the employees, the scheme could not have been a big hit and they are the unsung heroes.