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Journalism of Courage
Around a quarter of the fleet of buses operated by the Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation were overaged, a performance audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) for the period from 2017-18 to 2021-2022 has found. The report highlighted that the cost of operation had consistently exceeded the earnings.
“BMTC had 12.60 to 29.08 per cent of overaged buses in its fleet. The vehicle productivity of overaged buses was low and also inflated the fleet strength. Further, there was cancellation of scheduled kms due to vehicle-related issues such as shortage of buses, vehicles kept off road for repairs and maintenance, and breakdown of buses,” the report said.
According to the BMTC’s accounting policy, the entire value of the buses is written off after over 5.6 lakh km of operation. However, for operational purposes, the state-run transport corporation has fixed the minimum age of ordinary buses at 11 years or 8.5 lakh km, whichever is achieved earlier. Similarly, for premium buses, the maximum was fixed at 15 years or 10 lakh km.
“Audit noticed that during 2017-18 to 2021-22, BMTC operated 12.60 to 29.08 per cent of its fleet (841 to 1,909 ordinary buses) which had completed their useful life as per the norms fixed. Of these, 341 to 823 buses were beyond their stipulated lifespan both in terms of number of years and number of km,” it said.
Among the issues highlighted was that the productivity of vehicles older than 11 years was 80-147 km per day, as against the stipulated target of 206 km per day. In the case of vehicles that operated for more than 8.5 lakh km, the productivity was “only between 0.11 and 3.27 km per day”, the audit said, pulling up the BMTC for not adhering to its own criteria for the lifespan of buses.
Buses that ran for more than 8.5 lakh km and were not used for trips were also part of the BMTC fleet. The CAG found that such vehicles accounted for 9.59 to 14.54 per cent of the fleet. The audit noted that the BMTC had “28.50 per cent of overaged buses in the fleet for the year ended 31 March 2022,” as per the report, which pegged the corporation fleet strength at 6,799 buses at the end of March 21, 2022.
The audit found that the BMTC’s operating cost ratio increased from “133.59 per cent in 2017-18 to 222.62 per cent in 2021-22”. “Personnel costs (60 per cent) and fuel costs (27 per cent) were the major components of operating expenditure,” it said, adding that operational revenue had not increased commensurately to offset operational expenditure.
Moreover, as fare revision had not been undertaken since 2014-15, the BMTC could not earn an additional revenue of Rs 649.74 crore, the report added.
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