The government repeatedly warns that action will be taken if the heads of departments do not inform in time the PSC about the vacancies. However, no government department follows this directive properly. Sometimes, the rank list of PSC gets subverted by appointing temporary staff through the backdoor. This is done on the grounds that the exchequer is not capable of paying salaries and other benefits to the officers appointed through PSC. The number of educated young men and women whose future is in the dark without getting an appointment even after waiting for years to enter the rank list is on the rise in Kerala state. Everyone knows the history of KSRTC, one of the largest public sector undertakings in the state. With each passing year, the institution is getting thinner and thinner. The KSRTC has to extend its hand before the government every month to pay salaries and pensions to its employees.

The gap between income and expenditure continues to increase in KSRTC. It has been years since the salary disbursement was done properly. If government assistance is delayed, salaries will also be delayed. The status of pensioners is much worse. The government hands over the money to KSRTC to pay salaries when the court eventually reprimands it. The minister's announcement that the disbursement of salaries will take place before the fifth of every month is rippling somewhere in the wind. The present condition of KSRTC, which was on the roads of the state eight years ago with 35,120 employees and 5,200 services, is deplorable. The number of employees has dropped sharply to 23,000. The services are barely 4,000. The vacancies of employees are not 100 or 1,000. At present, KSRTC is planning to hire temporary employees in 2560 vacancies for daily wages. It's been a long time since the corporation adopted an appointment policy that pushes the youth who are dreaming of a permanent job in the corporation into the abyss of despair.

It was five years ago that KSRTC started reducing its employees because there were not enough buses for service. During this period when the recruitment ban came into effect, the services also declined drastically. The shortage of staff prevented even the buses in possession from being put into service. The losses continued to increase as more buses could not be purchased or services could not be restructured profitably. 2,560 employees have retired in the last six months. The corporation is trying to go ahead with temporary employees instead of PSC appointments in those vacancies. The idea is that it is enough to give minimum wages to temporary employees. Those who shed crocodile tears in the name of labourers are deliberately pretending not to see this betrayal and harm done to the youth who are looking for employment. The reasons why none of the measures taken to bring the KSRTC out of the quagmire of loss and inefficiency have been successful are not unknown to those who run the institution.

The services were restructured with an aim of earning Rs 7-8 crore per day. However, as the shortage of buses adversely affected the services, there was also a fluctuation in revenue. Services can be increased only if the number of buses is increased. The number of staff also needs to be increased accordingly. One can only imagine the fluctuations that will occur when services are reduced to 4,000 buses where more than 5,000 buses were plying. What is happening in the case of KSRTC is a policy approach that should not be done by anyone who wants the institution to prevail. Kerala has the highest bus fare in the country. Yet KSRTC is unable to even stand on its own feet. Every month a large sum of money has to be paid from the treasury to sustain this institution. How long can the corporation go ahead with an approach that harms passengers and its own employees alike?