HYDERABAD: AS the pile of its debts continues to grow and the grants received are at an all-time low, the State’s road transport corporation (TSRTC) is now desperate for other ways to pay the recover from. With Rs 928 crore losses incurred in the last year alone, the TSRTC has received a meagre Rs 114 crore in grants for the year 2019. Ironically, the grant is not sufficient to even pay off the interest on the loans it took which amount to Rs 365 crore.
A recent RTI revealed how in the last five years, for the Rs 1,230 crore sought by RTC, it received only Rs 619.5 crore. The corporation is now focussed on reducing the debits itself, to bring down the payment amount, due at an year’s end. Each of the 10,400 buses in the TSRTC fleet is bound to pay the Moto Vehicle Tax (MV tax) to the Road Transport Authority (RTA) which amounts to a total of Rs 280 crore. MV tax is another key component of the losses incurred by RTC each year. Most experts suggest that waiving off MV tax would not only help salvage the corporation from its losses, but also provide the public with better public transport.
According to a senior RTC official, at least 60 per cent of RTC fleet caters to rural areas where the buses are almost always running without profit. In such a scenario, it becomes very difficult for rural service buses to pay the MV tax. In the rural areas, RTC uses seven per cent of its earnings to pay off taxes and a waiver would be a definite shot in the arm. “Since these run as a matter of public service, the government must consider waiving off the MV tax for rural services at least,” the official noted.
Another major contributor to the corporation’s debt is the price of diesel used by the RTC buses. A glance at stats show that corporation consumes a whopping 5,00,000 litres of diesel everyday. The present rates of Rs 73 per litre, cost the corporation dearly, contributing a good chunk to an already large pile of debts. A fuel subsidy could help recover the losses, especially in Hyderabad, where losses go up to Rs 15 per kilometer due to greater diesel consumption owing to traffic and higher staff salaries.