Tamil Nadu: Property of eight state transport corporations mortgaged to banks
Chennai: All eight state-owned transport corporations in the state are on a bumpy road to nowhere with most of their propery including their fleet, office buildings, bus depots, besides retirement benefit funds of all employees mortgaged in banks for about Rs 15,000 crore.
The property under mortgage include the state express transport headquarters in Chennai, Pallavan Illamm the headquarters of city transport corporation, zonal headquarters and district headquarters. This also includes retirement benefits of employees like pension, provident fund and gratuity, say unions who claim this has been condition for the last 15 years.
The eight corporations own over 23,000 buses and about 12,000 of them are operated in rural areas. The transport corporation is considered to be running on service motive and some losses are expected. In the entire country, Tamil Nadu is the only state operating buses with service as the major objective. But, the amount of losses is considered to be huge since a debt of Rs 15,000 crore of about— seven times of the transport budget.
About two crore people use the government buses everyday and the services cover almost one crore-km everyday. The income for a km is 27 paise, while the expenditure is 32 paise resulting in a loss of '5 crore. Freedom fighters, anti-Hindi martyrs, patients with chronic diseases, mediapersons and 40 lakh students are given concessions.
While the government gives 50 per cent subsidy for students, the other half is to be borne by the transport corporations.
The eight corporations incur a loss of about Rs 3,000 crore and the government gives Rs 1,000 crore as subsidy, says K. Arumuga Nainar, general secretary, Tran-sport Employees Federation affiliated to CITU. This had resulted in the transport corporations borrowing money for maintenance and operation of the bus fleet.
About Rs 4,000 crore loans have been received from Tamil Nadu Transport Development Finance Corporation and the rest of them in nationalised banks.
The state express transport corporation headquarters in Chennai, its depot and its admin block, besides Coimbatore depot and bus stand have been mortgaged with Tamil Nadu Transport Development Finance Corporation for Rs 192 crore. The bus depot and terminus at T. Nagar had been mortgaged with the same corporation for over Rs 87 crore.
Patullas workshop, the depots as Anna Nagar, Ambattur have been mortgaged with IOB, Tiruvanmiyur depot with UCO bank and the depot and terminus at Mandaveli with Canara Bank. The zonal office at Kancheepuram, Villupuram, central workshop and Tiruvallur depot too have been mortgaged.
The life of a bus is six years or a running distance of seven lakh kilometers. But, in Tamil Nadu 70 per cent of the buses had crossed the limit. He said the government should compensate the losses of the corporation considering that it is operated with a service motive.
The present condition of the transport corporations is hampering them from buying new buses and improving the quality of their fleet. The employees are severely affected since their retirement benefits and future are at stake. People and workers are expecting the government to take adequate measures to bring back the corporations to a healthy state.
