more-in The Kerala State Road Transport Corporation’s (KSRTC) wet-leasing of multi-axle buses from Swedish automobile giant Scania has resulted in heavy loss. Launched with much fanfare in November to take on the inter-State private bus operators who were charging exorbitant rates, the five buses, on the Thiruvananthapuram-Bengaluru and Mookambika sector and back, are incurring a monthly loss of ?13 lakh on an average. Four daily services are operated to Bengaluru. In November, the loss suffered by the KSRTC on account of these services was ?21.50 lakh. In the subsequent months, it was ?8 lakh and above. The cash-strapped utility carried out an internal study on the wet-leasing of the buses after the five services yielded, on an average, revenue of only ?46 per km, against the target of ?52 per km. As per the arrangement, along with the multi-axle brand new bus, Scania has to provide the driver and maintain the vehicle. The KSRTC will have to deploy the conductor and provide high-speed diesel. The KSRTC is paying ?51.05 lakh per month as rent, ?54.84 lakh for diesel for the five buses and ?4.22 lakh as salary for the drivers. Although the KSRTC director board had approved the wet-lease of 20 Scania buses, the utility took only five into service under the three-year agreement. Run under the brand Garuda Maharaja, the KSRTC is paying a rent of ?30.24 per km for 600 to 649 km that the buses ply, ?27.72 per km for 650 to 699 km, ?26.60 per km for 700 to 749 km, ?24.95 per km for 750 to 799 km, and ?23.82 per km for 800 km and above. Sources said the KSRTC has decided not to go for wet-leasing of the remaining 15 multi-axle buses. Intention The wet-lease is part of the KSRTC’s plans to bring down the employee-bus ratio from 8.5 to the national average of 5.5, to dispense with separate categories of drivers and conductors and to increase daily collection from the fleet to ?8 crore as mooted by Sushil Khanna committee under the utility’s turnaround strategy.

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