KOCHI: The tale of financial loss incurred by the state-owned transport corporation could be a thing of the past soon. On the anvil is a proposal, seeking approval of the government, to revive the financial segment of KSRTC. The project, which was submitted by an engineering and management consultant to KSRTC MD Tomin Thachankary, focusses on generating revenue for the corporation through prepaid ticket sales programme.
“This project, if implemented, will bring an additional income of around Rs 2.5 crore to Rs 3 crore. This will be the first of the three-phase project and aims at bringing in revenue without any major investment in the KSRTC infrastructure,” said CK Sathish Kumar, CEO, KEMTS Engineering and Management Consultants. He said the proposal has been handed over to the Transport Minister by Thachankary. The current situation faced by the corporation is a combined effect of various issues including bad commercial performance.
The operational loss every month is Rs 1 crore, he added.
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“The immediate step that needs to be taken to tackle the situation is to generate additional income, in addition to improving performance and imposing cost control,” he said. The project doesn’t suggest retrenching and operational shrinkage. “Instead, we offer a tailor-made solution. These tickets will be sold through various government departments and institutions like Akshaya centres, Maveli stores, treasury and other offices. It will be made mandatory for those visiting these offices to buy a queue token or ticket that costs around Rs 20,” he said.
These tickets are valid for a period of one week and can be used to travel in any KSRTC service. “If a person wants to travel at a distance beyond the one covered by the ticket, they will have to pay for the additional distance. Another advantage of the ticket is, it is transferable,” he said. It doubles up as the lucky draw ticket, in the weekly and monthly lucky draw that KSRTC conducts. The holder also gets a cash discount on making a purchase at the shop of the third-party advertiser,” he added.