The
management of State Transport Undertakings in India is different for each. The
Telugu speaking states have their city operations under their respective state
transport corporations. Gujarat and Maharashtra have their city services under
municipal bodies for major cities. Although, a few manage their undertakings
properly, many places like Pune (PMPML) and Mira-Bhayandar (MBMT) in Thane’s
MMRDA region cannot manage to do so. Likewise, in states like Andhra Pradesh
(APSRTC), Goa (Kadamba) and Karnataka (NE/NWKRTC and most areas of KSRTC), the
municipal transport runs under the state transport organisation. Although,
these states can manage proper maintenance in spite of a lot of load on fleet traffic,
states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have miserably failed to do so. No matter
how successful a state is in controlling and maintaining all their buses, it is
a difficult affair for any corporation to manage their long distance and city
buses in one go. The easiest and immediate solution to this is probably the
formation of an Urban Transport Corporation.
An Urban
Transport Corporation is nothing but a state transport unit, which runs buses
in urban areas for transportation. The first URTC was formed in Kerala under
the acronym KURTC (Kerala Urban Road Transport Corporation) in November 2014.
Assam also followed suit.
KURTC Volvo (Then under KSRTC) on a Kochi City-Airport route (PC: Wikipedia)
Kerala and
Assam have quite a few similarities in their State Transport units, the most
striking detail being the allocation of a different RTO for each of their
undertakings. The allocation of different URTCs for these states is nothing
new.
Kerala has
around 900 low floor buses under KURTC. The corporation has seven divisions out
of which the major ones are Ernakulam and Thiruvananthapuram. Assam State Urban
Transport Corporation (ASUTC) which was launched in March 2015 runs around 600
buses in the Kamrup Metropolitan district which is headquartered by Guwahati.
Also, the formation of a different corporation was a much needed and convenient
move for easing the burden of their parent organisations. Since both the
organisations are new, nothing can be said about them as of except for the fact
that KURTC has been functioning decently in spite of limited routes.
An ASUTC Minibus being dispatched on an unknown route in Guwahati. (PC: Biswajit Baruah, reputed bus blogger)
The advantage of a different URTC is justifiable. First, it presses the organisation to buy more buses for easing public transport in urban and mofussil areas. Secondly, the State Transport Corporations have a lot of long distance route traffic to handle with different classes and multiple routes which is why there may be less focus on the urban transport segment if there is no proper experience in handling. This lessens the burden of SRTCs and ensures better handling.
Disadvantages
may range from lack of mutual cooperation to financing. No SRTC will be willing
to give their buses on lease to a URTC under any circumstance and jeapordise
their operations. Also, independent financing from the government may be an
issue if losses are prevalent. Financing is a huge advantage for a united SRTC.
A URTC also may be shut down under any circumstances but an SRTC cannot unless
it is necessary.
Also, URTCs
are run on state level. Corporations like Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport
Corporation (BMTC), Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) and Lucknow Mahanagar
Parivahan Seva (LMPS) are not URTCs. This is because BMTC operate their buses
only in Bengaluru Nagara and Rural districts as well as Ramanagara, DTC also
operates interstate and long distance services in and around the NCR. LMPS is
just a fancy name given to UPSRTC’s Lucknow City Depot.
Nevertheless,
URTCs have come up with a positive start and good response and hopefully the
practice of URTC formations will be a national trend.
-Shoubhik Ghosh
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