PANAJI
The State-owned public transport carrier Kadamba Transport Corporation (KTC) Limited has made losses year after year in the last five years aggregating a whopping Rs 55 crore plus, Transport Minister Mauvin Godinho has informed the Goa legislative assembly in a written reply.
Godinho said the KTCL's loss in 2017-18 was Rs 11.30 crores and it more than doubled to Rs 22.87 crore the next year in 2018-19.
The losses of the corporation, which has a virtual monopoly on instra-State routes, reduced to Rs 12.68 crore in 2019-20.
According to Godinho's written answer, the losses came down drastically in 2020-21 to just Rs 7.66 crore and a minuscule Rs 83 lakh in 2021-22. Pertinently these two years were when the Covid-19 pandemic had brought life to a standstill and public transport by bus was brought down to a skeletal operation.
The question on the KTCL's financial position was posed by Independent legislator of Curtorim, Aleixo Reginald Lourenco, who over a decade ago had headed the corporation as its chairman.
Lourenco had also sought information as to whether any new buses had been purchased or whether there are plans to replace some of the ageing buses from its fleet to which Godinho said, 64 buses had been purchased since 2017 and the Corporation has plans to buy 50 more buses by the end of the current year.
The minister said that the State government has made a provision of Rs 30-odd crore for the purchase of the 50 new buses, the tendering of which is in process.
Meanwhile, in another written answer to Lourenco's query, Godinho said 923 private bus operators have benefited from a fuel subsidy scheme for private operators in the public bus transport system.
It cost the State government Rs 53.4 crore since 2015, he added.
