Bengaluru: The financial situation of the State Transport Corporations is in a precarious situation with the agencies not even having enough funds to pay the salary of their employees.
These state transport corporations including the local BMTC (Bengaluru Mahanagara Transport Corporation) and KSRTC (Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation) amongst others have stayed in the depots and aren’t plying since the enforcement of the lockdown. They had sustained huge losses even prior to the lockdown.
Most of their budgets were spent on operations and maintenance costs prior to the lockdown.
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According to the information available, employees have been paid their salaries for the month of March.
There are about 1.25 lakh employees in the four main transport corporations across the state of Karnataka.
The Managing Director of BMTC, C Shikha said:
“As we will not be operating buses in April, it is not possible to pay our employees without support from the government”.
She added that the assistance has been sought for a period of three months.
The transport corporations are demanding a total bailout of Rs 130 crores from the state government to tide over this crisis.
BMTC is operating totally 180 buses to ferry workers in the essential services industry.
The rest of the staff are on paid leave.
Experts have opined that the only way forward is a merger of the four transport corporations in the state.