BENGALURU: Transport Minister and Deputy Chief Minister Laxman Savadi had his first meeting with Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation on Thursday. He met BMTC Managing Director C Shikha and other heads of department regarding the corporation’s present works and upcoming projects.“We spoke to BMTC officers and discussed how we can reduce the loss suffered by the corporation, add buses to the fleet and induction of electric buses through lease model. We haven’t made any decisions regarding the hike of bus fares,” Laxman Savadi said.
BMTC MD C Shikha said, “After going through the finance department, the state has agreed to exempt BMTC from the yearly motor vehicle tax which will be useful in bringing down our losses,” she said.
The corporation was briefly exempted from Motor Vehicle tax in 2017 to 2018 but it was later withdrawn. The corporation pays Rs 120 crores to the state for MV tax annually.
“We discussed how to improve the efficiency of our services. On Thursday, KSRTC floated the tender for electric buses, which included 300 electric AC buses for BMTC’s fleet on a lease model. The minister also reviewed the Intelligent Transport System (ITS) from the control room and asked for the Vehicle Tracking Units and Electronic Ticketing Machines which are not working in some places, to be fixed,” Shikha said. The corporation suffered a loss of Rs 340 crore in the last year and arresting this loss is what the new government is looking at.
“There are several reasons for drop in revenue including increased traffic, reduced speed of vehicles, need for better route rationalization,etc. We are working on improving route rationalization in a way that there are more buses available during peak hours and it is also commercially viable for us. We also intend to arrest the cost per kilometer and improve earnings,” the MD added.
Last week, BMTC also sent a request to Government of India to provide funds for electric vehicle charging infrastructure,“We have asked for Rs 45 crores to put up electric vehicle charging units and supporting infrastructure in our depots,” she told The New Indian Express.