3000 electric buses in the offing
CL Jose
“Is Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) a profitable entity?” is not a sensible question, nor does it expect to be.
Though KSRTC logged a loss of Rs1259.76 crore for 2022-23 (FY23), the encouraging aspect is that this was much lower than the loss the corporation recorded for the previous year at Rs1642.47 crore.
Moreover, KSRTC’s revenue in FY23 has moré than doubled to Rs2227 crore compared with Rs1095.52 crore a year earlier, on account of opening up of the economy post COVID restrictions, and also due to hike in fares.
The Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, the Finance Minister KN Balagopal and the Transport Minister KB Ganesh Kumar, have all vowed to turn around the corporation, which is the transportation lifeline for millions of common men.
Available figures on the corporation’s committed expenses suggest that KSRTC is likely to bleed heavily for longer than one would hope to.
Let’s look at the salary expenses and fuel expenses incurred by the Corporation in perspective.
Employee cost vs revenue
Employee cost has been a major burden at Rs1953 crore, swallowing 88 per cent of the total revenue of KSRTC at about Rs2227 crore in 2022-23 (FY23).
Power and fuel contributed to 60 per cent of the total expenses of KSRTC in 2023. Admittedly, there exist fluctuations in fuel prices on account of regulatory norms and the inevitable foreign exchange fluctuations that affect the cost of e crude oil import.
But the corporation has incurred heavy expenses on the day-to-day expenses taking the cost of sales for the entity to a very high level at Rs3487 crore in FY23 compared with Rs2738 crore in FY22.
(Cost of sales in the case of KSRTC is expenses directly related to operating the transportation services)
Certain green-shoots indeed
The CARE Ratings stated that long-term bank facilities have come down marginally to Rs2,930.49 crore in FY23 crore from Rs3023.86 crore a year earlier.
This has resulted in the upward revision of the long-term bank facilities’ rating from CARE D to CARE C, with Stable Outook.
KSRTC has, of late, succeeded in servicing the consortium debt. The Corporation has made an arrangement wherein the daily collections of 52 bus depots are deposited in the escrow account
The cash deposited in this escrow account is first utilized in meeting the equated daily instalments of the consortium loans.
3000 electric buses in the pipeline
To combat the increased fuel prices, KSRTC is said to be in discussion with various agencies to convert its fleet into electric operations by proposing the replacement of 3000 old diesel buses with electric buses.
These measures are expected to positively impact KSRTC going forward.
