Transport corporation suffers Rs 80 cr loss

The Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation (GSRTC) has estimated losses to the tune of Rs 80 crore due to the flood like situation. It has not yet been able to regularise its services in the parts of the state due to water logging.

"GSRTC has suffered loss of about Rs 80 crore, due to damage to buses, sheds, and fuel establishments. It has also lost about Rs 20 crore as bus traffic could not be managed on number of routes during last week," said G R Aloria, vice chairman, GSRTC.

"We are estimating loss of Rs 10 crore in miscellaneous operations for relief work and recovery of assets from water logging, servicing to vehicles and wastage of fuel," added Aloria.

Meanwhile GSRTC has started bus services from the major railway stations, in co-ordination with the Indian Railways, as railway traffic is not likely to start before Sunday. Presently, Indian Railways is working to restore the tracks on affected routes.

"We have decided to run buses from railway stations in Central and South Gujarat in co-ordination with Indian Railways but we are not getting good traffic of passengers as they are not sure about the connectivity. However, we are happy to show our committed services to the passengers in the state," said Aloria.

Commenting on the much talked about issue of divestment of loss making GSRTC, Aloria said,"Presently, the state government is more keen to make this enterprise profitable instead of selling off. During this flood situation, GSRTC has proved that it can survive and provide service in any condition and the state government would like to continue that."

Aloria said operations could not be normalised in parts of Kaira, Anand and Vadodara but buses were running smoothly on national, state and district highways.