Faleiro's heart cries for private bus lobby

| 28 December 1998 23:04 IST

The long-awaited partial nationalisation of bus transport within the state of Goa is on the verge of getting scrapped due to the soft corner the new Congress chief minister Luizinho Faleiro is having to the all-powerful private bus lobby here.

"I want the private enterprise to flourish", says the chief minister, without bothering to provide a concrete plan to lift up the state-owned Kadamba Transport Corporation, which is presently in doldrums due to mismanagement and lack of having profit-run routes in hands.

To counter the annual losses incurred to the tune of around Rs three crore by the two-decade old KTC, the erstwhile Congress government led by Pratapsing Rane had taken a firm decision to nationalise three trunk routes linking major towns of Panaji, Margao and Vasco.

Rane's predecessor Dr Wilfred de Souza, running a short-lived non-Congress coalition government, carried forward the plan and had even invited public objections, but collapsed within three and a half months before the nationalisation could come true.

Around 200 KTC buses among total 320 are off the roads today while 600 workers among 1850 are sitting idle due to shortage of buses. Besides paying them salaries to the tune of nearly Rs 10 crore annually, the KTC also spends around Rs 18 crore on maintenance, besides paying Rs 2.16 crore towards interest alone on the bank loan taken in the past.

Though the KTC has taken additional loan of Rs five crore from the Goa State Co-operative Bank Ltd to purchase 50 new buses and repairing 20 buses in next two months, it cannot even effect as an oxygen to the corporation having breathing problems.

In addition, Faleiro has now signed a settlement with the striking KTC workers to start implementation of fifth pay commission recommendation, which would mean additional annual burden of Rs 3.6 crore.

"The KTC can still run into profit if the nationalisation plan is implemented", feels AITUC leader Christopher Fonseca, who runs the KTC workers unions. He has assured total co-operation to the KTC to root out corruption and mismanagement, which is part of the rehabilitation package Faleiro has now worked out.

But his sudden stand against the nationalisation has stunned even his cabinet colleagues as well as the bureaucrats. "We won't be able to implement the package effectively if the three trunk routes are not nationalised", admits Congress MLA Arecio de Souza, who heads the KTC.

Instead of providing a firm alternate scheme to bring KTC back into profit, Faleiro however prefers to cry over private bus owners' families being thrown on the roads. The private bus transport in the state is a major irritant today, to the locals as well as the tourists, due to overcrowding, non-issuance of tickets and rough riding leading to frequent accidents.

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