Team Herald
PANJIM: The Comptroller and Auditor General of India has said that Kadamba Transport Corporation Limited (KTCL) could not recover the cost of operations in the last five years mainly due to cancellation of schedules, keeping buses off the road, high manpower cost and inadequate and ineffective monitoring by the management.
CAG noted that manpower cost of the corporation was about 59.51 percent followed by fuel cost of 22.34 percent to the total cost during 2015-16. It has also mentioned that during the same period the traffic revenue was 52 percent and non-traffic related subsidies were 44.23 percent of the total revenue.
“If the schedules are cancelled, Company (KTCL) has to pay idle wages. It has also to incur all other related expenditure except the expenditure on fuel and spares. Thus cancellation becomes a burden on the company. By keeping the buses idle the company lost a contribution of Rs 26.53 crore during 2011-16,” the report states.
KTCL procured four Volvo buses for Rs 3.56 crore to operate on interstate routes taking the fleet to six with the existing two Volvo buses which were plying on the Goa-Bangalore route.
CAG stated that of the six only four buses were used for two routes of Goa-Hyderabad and Goa-Bangalore while two buses were kept as spare without operating the Goa-Pune-Nashik route.
In explanation KTCL replied that four Volvo buses were operationalised late due to delay in obtaining waiver of entry tax from the State government and Goa-Pune-Nashik route is not opertionalised because colour scheme of the bus purchased was different from the colour required for the all India permit.
CAG said the reply is not acceptable as KTCL should have coordinated with the government in advance for tax waiver and also should have known the colour scheme while procuring the buses.
CAG also noted that during 2011-16, due to non-availability of tyres, 420 buses were off the road for the period ranging from one day to 200 days resulting in loss of Rs 1.57 crore.
CAG also said that for 2015-16 a total of 77 out of 565 buses were off the road continuously for more than a month.
It also observed that KTCL has violated Rule 116 (7) of the Central Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989 for plying some buses without PUC certificate.
CAG also noted that the lowest bidder was not chosen in 2013 by KTCL for purchasing 100 mini buses resulting in an avoidable expenditure of Rs 49.80 lakh.
KTCL has been in loss since its inception in 1980 and has been completely dependent over assistance from the government to pay of the staff. CAG also mentioned that KTCL is over staffed and at many places and the extra expenditure can be controlled.
<f$>
