The Kottayam KSRTC depot has started filling diesel for its buses from the Civil Supplies Corporation’s outlet at Manipuzha here from Tuesday night. The officials at the depot said that the new system for fuelling went on smoothly on Wednesday as well.
Assistant Transport Officer T A Kunju Muhammed said that, on the first day, as many as 8,500 litres of diesel was taken by the buses from the depot at a rate of `50.80 per litre which is `13 less than the price fixed by the oil companies for bulk consumers.
“A cheque of `4.35 lakh was issued from the KSRTC head office at Thiruvananthapuram for buying diesel from the pump on Tuesday and it was encashed by the Civil Supplies Corporation on Wednesday morning at the Federal Bank Branch in Kottayam. On Wednesday, the KSRTC bought 7,600 litres of diesel from the outlet and a cheque of `3.85 lakh was issued in this regard to the Civil Supplies Corporation authorities,” he added.
The ‘Kozhikode model of payment’ will be introduced for the diesel bought from the Supplyco outlet.
According to this system, the payment for a day’s fuel will be given the following day. “At present, the depot has 110 schedules and 105 buses. No trip was cancelled in the depot over the issue of fuelling. Some buses have been taken off the road for repair work. Apart from that all buses in the depot are operational,” Muhammed said.
It is learnt that the Supplyco’s pump has a capacity of 40,000 litres of diesel and the KSRTC depot will be in need of 8,000 to 9,000 litres of diesel daily and unless there is an issue with the supply of diesel to the pump by the oil company, there will not be any hitches in the fuel supply to the transport corporation.