Gross revenue far less than interest expenses
By CL Jose
KOCHI/November 20-2022: Kochi Metro that commenced its commercial operations more than five years ago with much fanfare remains still ‘in the red’, rolling out huge losses year after year.
One of the state’s most prestigious projects, Kochi Metro, has posted Rs339.55 crore net loss for the financial year 2021-22 (FY22), upping the loss by 1.5 per cent from the previous year’s Rs334.90 crore.
More seriously, the said net loss far exceeds the whole revenue the company earned during the year at Rs142.31 crore (Rs167.46 crore in FY21), being the fare box and non-fare income.
The gross revenue was not even sufficient to cover the interest expenses or the finance cost during the said period at Rs188.55 crore.
Accumulated losses
The books of Koch Metro Rail Project (KMRL), the company that operates the metro rail service in Kochi, show that the accumulated losses have reached Rs1,477 crore as of March end, 2022.
The number of passengers travelled during the financial year 2021-22 was just 96,94,014, and the fare box revenue for the whole year (financial) was a paltry Rs30.78 crore, which flags the low ridership the metro service has attained so far.
According to KMRL document, the Government of India and Government of Kerala have released their entire share of subordinate debt towards central taxes amounting to Rs248.50 crore each.
Subordinate debt forms part of the equity capital of the company.
“Moreover, the Government of Kerala released Rs237.33 crore towards reimbursement of state taxes and Rs 672.25 crore towards land acquisition, out of which Rs366 crore is arranged as back-to-back loan from the Kerala State Cooperative Bank (KSCB) or Kerala Bank on behalf of the Government of Kerala,” KMRL has stated.
KMRL statistics also show that an amount of Rs666.88 crore was received by the company under various heads of expenditure as Subordinate Debt.
The total loan outstanding from the French Development Agency, Agence française de développment (AFD) and Canara Bank for Phase I as on March 31, 2022 were Rs1152.51 crore and Rs1372.78 crore respectively.
The total loan outstanding from the consortium of Canara Bank and Union Bank of India (UBI) as on March 31, 2022 for the Phase I extension amounted to Rs395.23 crore.
In addition to above, term loans have been availed from Kerala Bank and HUDCO towards land acquisition for project works, preparatory works, and cost escalation for Phase I project, guaranteed by the State Government towards interest servicing and loan repayment.
The amounts outstanding from Kerala Bank and HUDCO as on March 31, 2022 are Rs235 crore and Rs605.05 crore respectively, according to the KMRL audited report for FY22.
The total borrowings of the company as of end-FY22 stand at Rs4149.56 crore as of March 31, 2022.
(Credit to Malayalam version of myfinpoint.com)
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