-ksrtc

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: KSRTC received green signal from the government to proceed with actions to overcome the current employee crisis after dismissing M-Panel employees. This is a chance for RTC to implement the reforms in Prof. Susheel Khanna's report. RTC management calculates that union members are not in a position to demand things. So this could be a perfect time to implement reforms. The plans in Susheela Khanna's report will be used to overcome shortage of conductors. Drive cum conductor project will be instigated along with avoiding conductors in long distance buses. Employees and union members were against such reforms. Currently KSRTC's have a labour strength of around 13,000 drivers. There are plans to give conductor training to at least 500 of these employees and certify them with conductor badges. Such employees will be posted as Driver cum conductor. In long distance buses like Scania, conductors don't have much work. So employees who receive special training can swap places as driver and conductor in such buses.

Conductors will be completely avoided in super deluxe and 'minnal' buses.

Important Reforms
1. Bus services running on the recommendations of MLAs and MPs are not profitable. Such services will be stopped.
2. Instead of buying buses, RTC plans to rent them. In this way, only fuel charge and conductor's salary need to be sustained.
3. Chief and depot offices will be computerised thereby reducing manpower
4. KSRTC will ask to exempt them from diesel taxes which is 23.81% of the total fuel price.
5. There are plans to introduce travel cards instead of tickets.

Even after the curtailment of 1000 services due to shortage of employees, KSRTC didn't suffer any losses. This will encourage the management to employ these reforms.