[sustran] Item on India bus woes from [CSE's Air Pollution bulletin] - - Jan. 7 edition

[Paul Barter]

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> 
> Policy Police: Requiem for the state bus
> 
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> 
> Kill. The ultimate scalpel operation as the final sign of 
> life ebbs away.
> Let it die, rather than drag a colossal waste. We were 
> probably expecting this to happen. Not just to this 
> state-owned bus transit undertaking in India's largest state 
> -- Madhya Pradesh -- but to numerous other undertakings that 
> have state governments as their bosses. Bankruptcy at monthly 
> losses totaling Rs 50 million, indignity of unpaid salaries 
> for 11,500 staff members that run only 1500 buses forced this 
> euthanasia in Madhya Pradesh. With this came the quiet 
> reminder of a similar case two years back, when the Manipur 
> State Transport Corporation shut down operations.
> 
> There is a depressing pattern to all this. The crisis engulfs 
> both state-run and city transport undertakings in many states 
> in India.
> 
> The scale of the decay and the rot does not shock. This is 
> routine in any government-run institution. But at a time when 
> the interest is slowly growing in finding transportation 
> solutions to the congestion and pollution mayhem, 
> institutional failure of this magnitude spells disaster in 
> cities. This fatalist mindset to surrender without charting 
> solutions is criminal. Not a single state government has been 
> able to develop a blueprint to craft institutional changes 
> for coordinated and integrated public transport services in 
> cities. Cities face either a total collapse of public 
> transport, or chaos with private bus operators running amuck 
> without controls.
> 
> The chances of recovery for the state-owned city transit 
> agencies look grim. A quick review foretells a crisis in 
> these loss-making operations.
> The city undertakings are plunged into a vortex: as revenues 
> are down, fleet size or service enhancement is impossible, 
> and in this situation the losses continue to mount. The 
> losses for Mumbai city undertaking have increased by a 
> whopping 255 per cent during the decade 1990-2001. Chennai 
> also saw an increase in losses by 206 per cent in the same period.
> 
> Pressured into maintaining low fares, subsidies and services 
> in unprofitable routes, most state-owned city undertakings 
> cannot recover operational cost or reach anywhere close to 
> breakeven point. The overall balance sheet of the Delhi 
> Transport Corporation (DTC) for instance, points to the need 
> for an urgent re-engineering of the financial situation.
> 
> Enormous labour cost imbalances the balance sheet. If by 
> convention, experts consider four persons per bus as 
> efficient, the DTC employs nearly 40,000 people to manage a 
> fleet of 3,398 buses - a staff ratio of eleven persons per 
> bus. The salary cost of DTC eats up all its earnings -- an 
> astounding 91 per cent of its total earnings.
> 
> The DTC is still afloat largely because the government 
> affords it immunity from financial shocks. An increasing 
> dependence on Ways and Means loans from the government on a 
> month-to-month basis to cover the working deficit will never 
> be adequate to square up the monthly working loss. It will be 
> difficult to sustain the Corporation in this fashion or any 
> other for long as the emerging financial fissures make clear.
> 
> Why are we concerned? For the simple reason that this 
> inefficiency is translating into a mobility crisis -- 
> plunging passenger volumes when demand for travel is rising. 
> Defying all reasons, the bus occupancy in all major city bus 
> undertakings has fallen dramatically. In Mumbai and Kolkata, 
> the decline has been most dramatic -- a quarter drop from 
> 1990 levels. In Pune the load factor has come down from 64 
> per cent in 1990 to
> 45 per cent in 2001. This means that nearly half of the Pune 
> Corporation's buses are running empty. Fleet utilisation in 
> some metros like Kolkata is as dismal as 66.50 per cent.
> 
> If the state-owned transit agencies are expected to provide 
> the bulk of the urban services in bigger cities, the poor 
> financial performance cast doubts on their viability to 
> provide adequate and quality public transport services. And 
> that worries. More people will desert buses and go zoom on 
> cars and two-wheelers.
> 
> The government has not planned solutions. It despairs and 
> gives up. Says privatise. In fact, two key policy documents - 
> the Tenth Plan document and the draft national Urban 
> Transport Policy - make the case for greater private 
> participation. Such a cliché when on an all-India basis, 
> nearly 90 per cent of the buses are already in private hands. 
> Only in some cities do the state-owned undertakings have a 
> larger presence - 33 per cent of bus ownership in Delhi for instance.
> 
> Already ad hoc privatisation, with route licenses being 
> issued in varying numbers to small bus operators, is creating 
> chaos in traffic management.
> The current woes stem from the enhanced but unplanned private 
> sector participation. Mismanaged and unhealthy competition 
> between the state-owned and private bus agencies has 
> sharpened. Reckless competition is making roads unsafe.
> 
> Though private sector investment has begun, there is no 
> strategic planning or set timetables to create a dramatic 
> turnaround. With a greater influx of private operators, it is 
> essential to put a regulatory framework in place. But as of 
> now there are no signs of individual operators being 
> consolidated into cooperatives or transit companies to make 
> them more amenable to regulations. If we wait longer, there 
> could be resistance from these unruly bus operators to 
> regulatory demands to maintain the quality of urban bus 
> services. Unregulated autonomy may lead to unfair practices.
> The negotiating power of the regulator will only get weaker.
> 
> While the Urban Transport Policy has failed to give any 
> guideline on this matter, the Tenth Plan document leaves it 
> to the state governments to issue guidelines on 
> privatisation. It only arbitrarily suggests a minimum viable 
> size of the fleet - preferably 50, and sets criteria for 
> technical and financial soundness of the operators. That's 
> all. No details on possible models. City governments remain 
> clueless about regulating bus transport -- network structure, 
> service quality criteria, pricing and fare structure, 
> safeguards for the poor and use of regulatory instruments to 
> manage privatisation. They are not even interested. Such a 
> policy vacuum!
> 
> For the government, privatisation is a cop out. Close shops, 
> and shed responsibility. Look away, even as the state-owned 
> transit agencies dodder at sub-optimal efficiency - trying 
> desperately to maintain hold. Just as private operators 
> desperately require reorganisation, state-run transit 
> agencies can only survive with reforms. But city governments 
> show no signs of revving up to this task.
> 
> We miss the bus once again.
> 
> -- Anumita Roychowdhury
> Right To Clean Air Campaign
> 
> Read this online >>
> http://www.cseindia.org/campaign/apc/state-bus.htm
> 
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> © Centre for Science and Environment