BENGALURU: Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation’s (KSRTC) laundry plant in one of the depots in Shantinagar, though modest in appearance, has helped the corporation save a tidy sum.
A senior KSRTC official estimates it to be Rs 5 lakh over nine months. But, the laundry plant of KSRTC, celebrating its 57th Foundation Day on Wednesday, was installed in 2014 not as part of any austerity drive but as a response to passenger grievances. Sources in KSRTC told Express that bedsheets and blankets provided to passengers travelling in ‘premium’ buses (high-end non and air-conditioned buses) were initially outsourced to commercial laundry shops.
Soon the corporation was being flooded with complaints from passengers that the blankets given to them were not washed properly and had an unpleasant smell. KSRTC realising that the issue if left unaddressed would have a serious fallout decided to have an in-house laundry plant.
The plant with about 30 staffers works through out the year, washing and ironing 7,300 blankets and bedsheets of over 300 premium buses per day.
The cost including detergents, electricity, labour per blanket is between Rs 4.50 and Rs 5. Earlier, KSRTC paid between `7 and `8 per blanket, a senior staff told Express.