'Compensate transport corpn’s losses due to loss-making routes'

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu State Transport Employees Federation (TNSTEF) has written to the Finance Minister seeking budgetary allocation for the loss incurred by the state transport undertakings which operate buses to villages for public convenience.

“Transport corporations play an important role in the socio-economic life of Tamil Nadu. Apart from providing free travel to various parties on the basis of fulfilling government schemes, they are running buses on about 10,000 routes knowing that there will be losses. The majority of the bus routes which connect rural areas have helped in the development of education and the economy,” CITU affiliated TNSTEF general secretary K Arumughanainar wrote in a letter to Finance Minister.

Noting that the government allocates funds for free and concession travel for various categories of passengers, he said that there is no compensation for buses that run for social good on low-income and loss-making routes. “Due to this, the transport corporations are in dire financial straits,” he noted.

To improve the transport corporation, he said his union has been demanding the government to allocate funds to cover the difference between the revenue and the expenditure.

Pointing to the GO issued by the Transport Department on the Finance Minister’s announcement for fixing normative cost parameters to disburse subsidies based on the operation of buses on uneconomical routes, he said that so far the corporations were not given any funds in this regard. “To overcome the shortfall, the corporations are resorting to practices such as denying or curtailing statutory benefits to workers. The retired workers are denied a dearness allowance hike,” he said, urging the Minister to allocate funds in the budget for the losses suffered by the corporations.