KTC's social obligation comes at a very high price
The Kadamba Transport Corporation Ltd has come a long way. From an organisation with four buses it has grown to presently own a fleet of 551 vehicles. It operates vehicles on trunk routes as well as non-profitable ones. It steps in when the private sector fails to deliver. It has faced bouquets and brickbats. It has weathered complaints over quality of service and condition of vehicles. But in the end the KTC has played the role it was meant to play when conceptionalised in the early 1980s. It started out as a small organisation and gradually filled the gaps left by the private sector, which is profit driven.
However, on the financial side it has been a disaster and no government has succeeded in nursing it back to health. The truth be said: Running a company at a loss for 35 years is no achievement and the state government and the Kadamba Transport Corporation Ltd have nothing to celebrate about at least on this front. Yes, the corporation has grown from four buses to a fleet of 551. Yes, the corporation has a social obligation and has to run buses on routes that are not profitable. Yes, it provides a service that is valuable to the travelling public. But it has accumulated losses of Rs 203 crore and it closed last year with a loss of Rs 18.26 crore. This is not small money and losses of this nature cannot be glossed over or swept under the carpet.
With the exception of a few public sector units, which continue to churn our profits for the government because they have a monoploy, the vast majority of companies owned and managed by the government are deep in the red. The KTCL falls in the bracket of companies, which would have failed if not for government support. Every year promises are made to revive the KTCL and every year these promises are broken with no questions asked. It is as though the government and the people of Goa have accepted that this is the only way to run the KTCL.
The question is can something be done to revive it? Attempting to reach a point where all the accumulated losses are written off is futile even though Chairman Carlos Almeida has promised to break even next year. It is nice to have targets, but they have to be realistic. The best the KTCL can hope for, is to break even on the operational side, that is, its earnings must match its operational costs leaving out the component of salaries. If this balance can be achieved then the KTCL will have achieved something. Salaries are a huge burden but they cannot be avoided. Given the present state of finances, the corporation must re-think the take-over of private buses on the Margao-Canacona route. While the social obligations of providing connectivity is important, a balance needs to be drawn between the two and a cost-benefit study must be undertaken to ascertain if the money put in by the government is well spent.
