The Kerala High Court on Tuesday observed that the State government should conduct a proper audit of all the assets of the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) and also the constructions made by the Kerala Transport Development Finance Corporation (KTDFC) on the land of the KSRTC and verify where the problems of the corporation were heading.
Justice Devan Ramachandran made the observation when writ petitions against the delay in payment of salaries to the KSRTC staff came up for hearing.
The court observed that the KSRTC had a large area under it on which several buildings, offices, shopping centres and so on had been constructed. However, there was no indication why these assets were not being put to full use or why enough profits were not being generated.
The counsel for the petitioner argued that many of the buildings were constructed by the KTDFC on a build-operate-transfer(BOT) basis. But unfortunately, many of them were substandard and incapable of attracting commercial interest. The court said this issue must engage the mind of the government and a proper audit of all assets should be done because a substantial share of the liability of the corporation appeared to have been created on account of such constructions.
The court also observed that unless the profitability of the corporation was increased, its future would be bleak. Every stakeholder, including the management, employees, and the government, should recognise and accept this. Unless all the stakeholders act in unison, it would be impossible to find resources to pay off the recurring liabilities of the KSRTC.
The court also directed the KSRTC to ensure that every bus which was capable of being put to operation was deployed and that schedule as far as possible was increased to reach the targeted ticket collection of ₹8 crore a day, which alone appeared to be the method of keeping the KSRTC afloat at this point of time.
State stance
During the hearing on the petition, the government pleader submitted that the government had no intention to close down the KSRTC or make it a government department. It wanted the Corporation to limit its expenditure to ₹1,000 crore. However, the employees wanted their salary without making any efforts to increase productivity and reduce operating expenses. They were still agitating against the management and the government without accepting any of the reforms being introduced. In fact, the government gave around ₹71 crore on a monthly basis to pay pensions to the retired staff and provided ₹30 crore every month to the loss-making corporation.
