No funds for SRTC’s rural link service in supplementary budget

The UP State Road Transport Corporation (UPSRTC)’s proposal seeking to connect all the villages in the state to their district headquarters through an affordable bus service does not seem to be finding favour with the state government.

The Monday’s supplementary budget did not have any provision for the funds that the UPSRTC sought from the government to make up for the operational losses that it expects to suffer from the plying of buses in rural areas.

This has come as a big disappointment to the authorities that planned the scheme. They believed the scheme could have transformed the rural transport system and economy while at the same time helping the state government gain politically.

A UPSRTC official said, “They are investing Rs 13,000 crore in the Lucknow metro to cater to the minuscule population of a city and have set up the urban development fund to compensate for the losses from the operation of the buses under the JNNURM scheme — again in a few cities. But they are surprisingly reluctant to bear Rs 200 crore a year to make up for the operational losses that the UPSRTC will face on account of plying buses in rural areas to serve 80% of the population.”

Under the proposed scheme, the UPSRTC seeks to ply 22,000 buses to connect the state’s 94000 villages with their block and district headquarters. A recent presentation recently by the corporation claimed the service would be extremely useful for doctors, nurses, teachers, and other government staff that have to travel to villages. The corporation, however, feels that plying buses in rural areas especially during the off-peak hours would incur losses for which it demanded the government to provide ` 200 crore every year as the viability funding mechanism. “We had demanded ` 90 crore for the remaining period of the current financial year and expected the government to provide the same in the supplementary budget,” said another official.

He said the government might agree to give funds for new buses but that, he said, would not serve the purpose.