THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: KSRTC has cancelled all tenders for the purchase of new electric buses. The process of procuring 950 e-buses free of cost from the Centre has also been frozen. This is due to the opposition of the department minister Ganesh Kumar in purchasing electric buses.

The tenders for purchasing 13 buses under Smart City scheme of Thiruvananthapuram Municipality, 20 buses under Kochi Smart City and 50 diesel super fasts with KIIFB funds were cancelled.

On October 4, the Transport Department had sent a letter agreeing to accept 950 e-buses sanctioned by the Centre under the PM-eBus Sewa scheme to operate in the cities of Kerala. Buses will be given if the finance department takes further steps. But the KSRTC management has put a hold on these steps until the new minister's decision is clear.

According to the scheme, the finance department has to make a payment security mechanism for acquiring the buses. For this, a corpus fund of Rs 83 crores should be created in collaboration with the central government. Rs 48 crores out of this is state share. The corpus fund is a government guarantee to the company providing the buses for correct payment of rent and an uninterrupted supply of electricity. 3975 buses have been procured by other states which followed the procedure.

Move to buy minibuses

The new move is to buy diesel mini buses. Ganesh Kumar was the transport minister from 2001 to 2003 when mini buses were procured for KSRTC. The mini bus plying through the narrow roads was praised at the beginning, but later it all came to a screeching halt.

E buses are profitable

It is estimated that the e-bus service in Thiruvananthapuram city has a profit of Rs 32,000 per route. KSRTC did not purchase e-buses on its own. If a diesel bus service is run on the same route, there will be a loss of Rs 25,000 to Rs 35,000. Rs 3.5 crore will have to be spent on diesel. The average monthly income is Rs 7 crores.