Thiruvananthapuram: One of the major announcements was about KSRTC in the budget presented by Finance Minister T. M. Thomas Isaac in the Assembly on Friday, through the formation of a consortium of district co-operative banks and major primary co-cooperative societies to disburse pension arrears and monthly pensions in all districts. The government will repay the loans with interest within six months. This amount will be identified from the financial assistance of Rs 1,000 crore sanctioned to KSRTC.
Once the financial position of KSRTC improves through restructuring, the pension liability will be vested back with KSRTC. A major criticism against the government has been that it has not taken over KSRTC’s pension. In one year, around Rs 720 crore is required for the pension. Rs 1,507 crore has already been given to KSRTC. However, the crisis in KSRTC could not be resolved merely by taking over pension payment, the budget said.
Rs 505 crore has been made available as loan on the guarantee of the government. Of this, Rs 324 crore has already been given through KIIFB and Rs 44 crore from the Plan Fund. Altogether, financial assistance amounting to Rs 1,507 crore has been given to KSRTC. But the budget said that the policy of the LDF government was not to solve the crisis by taking over the pension and salary of loss-making PSUs, but to strengthen them by various means.
The budget also mentioned about comprehensive reforms to generate pension and salary on their own. The budget pointed out that that the fact of having been able to make public sector industries profitable ventures, was the scintillating success of this approach. The same success was going to be repeated in KSRTC also, the budget said.
