This may not be good news for the bus commuters of Tamil Nadu. Eight of the State Transport Undertakings (STUS) of Tamil Nadu have witnessed losses of Rs 25,160 crore in the past four years.
According to reports that quote the government affidavit submitted to the Madras High Court, the average daily losses rose from Rs 9 crore in 2017-18 to Rs 18 crore in 2021-22 as per documents presented in the Assembly recently. The average daily losses, however, dipped to Rs 14.8 crore between April 2022 and February 2023.
As per the details, in 2022, these STUs earned Rs 12,007 crore, of which Rs 6,705.69 crore came from operational revenue that included ticket fares and Rs 5,256.86 crore from non-operational revenue, including advertising.
However, expenses came to Rs 16,985 crore, of which staff salaries made up 53 per cent at Rs 9,015 crore, and fuel costs came in at 28 per cent (Rs 4,815.94 crore).
The government’s initiative to provide free bus travel for women, trans people, people with disabilities, and their attendees has helped to increase the daily patronage of government buses, which had fallen to 73.64 lakh in 2020–21 amid the Covid–19 pandemic, to 1.7 crore in 2022–23 (up to February). The STUs are completely compensated by the state government for implementing the plan into action.
According to government data, transport companies have recently reduced the number of bus journeys on a number of routes in order to cut costs. As a result, between 2019–20 and 2022–2023, the daily mileage travelled by government buses reduced from 83.65 lakh km to 77.81 lakh km. Additionally, there are now 18,723 fewer scheduled services than there were 19,290. However, despite the fact that fuel costs have increased by Rs 955 crore over the past four years, bus fares have not been changed since January 2018.
