BEST has worst finance, MSRTC bad buses

The latest public transport report card released by the Union ministry has ranked BEST as the second highest loss-making body in the country and the MSRTC as the country’s third-highest profit making body. The report also says that accidents have gone up on both the fleets.

The BEST has recently proposed a fare hike and also cut down on 15 loss-making routes to correct its finances. Among the three highest loss-making SRTUs, Delhi Transport leads the bandwagon with highest loss of Rs2,286.54 crore, followed by BEST’s Rs381.38 crore and Andra Pradesh’s state transport of Rs268.81 crore.

A BEST committee member said that BEST was now looking at various other options from where they could raise money and pull the undertaking out of the red. The MSRTC, however, fares badly when it comes to using its buses as its fleet of over-aged buses has increased from 0.6% in 2010 to 10.4% in 2011. The productivity of the transport undertakings, to a large extent, depends on the age profile of their bus fleet and the policy adopted for scrapping of over-aged buses.

“One cannot compare city and state buses. We are planning to improve and upgrade the fleet. This year we are planning to induct new fleet of semi-sleeper Volvos, new Sheetals, new Parivartans with better design and seats,’’ Deepak Kapoor, managing director of MSRTC told DNA.