KOCHI: The Thevara Kerala Urban Road Transport Corporation (KURTC) depot, which started in 2016 with 50 AC and 110 low-floor buses, has just around 80 buses left now. They too are biting dust. The ambitious project which aimed to ease the travel woes of city residents met with an untimely demise owing to technical snarls and lack of good planning. Pandemic dealt the final blow, bringing the expensive buses to halt, one by one. Very soon, the depot will be shut. This isn’t surprising, considering how KSRTC has been trying to cover its losses.
“Why should we keep a depot operational for buses that can’t run city services? The fleet of low-floor buses was meant to ease transport within the city. However, with the Kochi Corporation denying KSRTC permission to operate them, they are now lying idle at the depot. Maintaining and operating low-floor AC buses requires plenty of money, which we don’t have now,” said Biju Prabhakar, CMD, KSRTC. With the Covid threat still looming large, many passengers are also hesitant to board AC buses.
ROAD AHEAD
KSRTC to roll out minibuses soon
while KURTC’s low-floor buses gather dust at the depot, KSRTC is drawing up plans to roll out a fleet of small 24-seater buses. It has incorporated lessons learnt from the failure of the low-floor buses to revamp its strategy. According to Biju Prabhakar, KSRTC has already initiated a major reformation of its services in Thiruvananthapuram city. “The reformed services will be launched on November 25 by the chief minister,” he added.
A similar process is expected in Kochi too, he added. “Running city services from one stop to next is not the right way. Services need to be planned out in a way that they can increase footfall,” he said. For example, connecting Lulu with Vypeen or Fort Kochi will work better, he added. The corporation is currently awaiting new schemes under JNNURM to come from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. “Once it comes to the fore, we will get small buses that are nine metres long apart from minibuses that can seat 24 people. These buses will suit Kochi’s narrow roads better,” said Biju, adding that there are around 18,000 minibuses conducting services across India.
Low floor buses too long for city’s narrow roads
“The low-floor buses are long and it is very hard to navigate them on the narrow city roads. The plan is to use these buses on long routes. It is not profitable to operate them inside the city. The mileage is very low and the cost of maintenance is very high,” added Biju. KSRTC may use the depot to enhance the tourism possibilities in the district, he added. According to the staff at Thevara depot, there are 80 buses parked there now.
“It is now a bus yard. We had around 100 staff members working here, including the drivers, conductors and maintenance staff. But over the years, all of them got transferred to different depots across the state. Now only 20 remain, and they are in the mechanical department,” said a staff member.
The staff is unaware of the decision to close the depot. “But the way things are moving, we believe it could happen any time soon. At present, only five buses are conducting services. When the Sabarimala season started, 12 buses from the depot started conducting services to Pamba. Around 15 are ready to be used as a substitute when one of the running buses break down. We also test drive the ones lying idle every now and then. But leaving them parked at the depot is a big blow for KSRTC,” added the staff member.
Low-floor timeline