KTC income zooms after introduction of AC buses

PANJIM, OCT 8
Kadamba Transport Corporation Limited (KTCL) treasury got richer with the introduction of air conditioned Volvo buses on Margao- Panaji route.
The two AC Volvo buses, which started plying on nationalized route since October 4, has jumped the shuttle service revenue on this route from 20 percent to 30 percent.
Corporation’s Chairman Deepak Dhawalikar said that the effort was to prop up the revenue and also to provide better service to the passengers.
“Since, these buses were lying idle in the depots for years and we were also planning to buy new AC buses for shuttle service we thought to repair them. The cost of repair was much less then what we would have spent on buying new one,” Dhawalikar said.
He said that on an average one AC Volvo bus cost Rs 60 lakh, while a repairing cost was not more then Rs 10 lakh.
The Kadamba management said that they are planning to increase the number of trips from four to six due to good response from the commuters.
 “We are charging Rs 30, which is little higher then the normal shuttle price (Rs 26). But still more and more people prefer to travel by these buses as they provide much comfort,” he said.
KTCL has a fleet of 392 buses of which 60 provides shuttle service on Panaji –Margao route catering around 20,000 passenger’s everyday.
The corporation by next month will be also adding 20 new low floor buses with additional 10 seats, which will provide shuttle service to the public.
Dhawalikar while taking over the charges of the financially crumbled corporation had said “my priority is to make the organisation a financially stable one”. 
The Corporation which was hit by financial crisis after the implementation of Sixth Pay Commission earlier this year, had seen a respite after injection of several fiscal measures to improve the functioning of KTCL, which according to new chairman was important to increase revenue.