Kochi: The Kerala State Road Transport Corporation now saves Rs 1 crore daily towards loan repayment post the pact with a consortium of nine nationalised banks to swap the loans it had taken from the Kerala Transport Development Finance Corporation.Yet, it could not reach breakeven point with the income-expenditure deficit still a distant Rs 35 crore a month.
“Starting from January onwards, we have so far saved about Rs 2.4 crore towards loan repayment. We were facing a monthly loss of Rs 105 crore. We could now bring it down to Rs 35 crore monthly deficit. The major expense is with regard to pension payments which touch Rs 40 crore,” said Mr Antony Chacko, Managing Director.
Though earlier the corporation had planned to use a part of “savings” for providing an accident insurance cover for commuters, the same could not be done now. “However, the insurance scheme is on and covers 35 lakh commuters. We paid Rs 3.5 crore as insurance premium for this year. There will not be any lapse on this front,” the official said.
The saving of Rs 1 crore daily was on account of three factors. “We could save Rs 32.5 crore per year towards interest payment and another Rs 9.75 crore since there is no government guarantee. Also the repayment instalment is now spread over 12 years instead of the four years earlier,” he said.
