Premium
This is an archive article published on February 7, 2021

Pune: First time in 10 months PMPML revenue from ticket sale crosses Rs 1-crore mark

PMPML spokesperson Satish Gate said February has begun on a promising note for the transport undertaking as the revenue collection is witnessing appreciable rise.

The transport body, which has attracted criticism for mismanagement and financial losses, suffered a great extent owing to the lockdown. (Express Photo)The transport body, which has attracted criticism for mismanagement and financial losses, suffered a great extent owing to the lockdown. (Express Photo)

PMPML, the city’s transport undertaking whose revenue had dipped drastically during the lockdown period, is witnessing a revival in its fortune this month. For the first time in 10 months, it has registered over Rs 1 crore revenue from ticket sale.

PMPML spokesperson Satish Gate said February has begun on a promising note for the transport undertaking as the revenue collection is witnessing appreciable rise. “On February 1, we collected Rs 1.05 crore revenue. This is the highest since lockdown was imposed in March and bus service went off the roads,” he said.

As per the PMPML, the total revenue collection from ticket sale stood at Rs 1.05 crore on February 1 when 6.90 lakh commuters travelled in buses. On February 2, the revenue collection stood at Rs 99.81 lakh with 6.8 lakh passengers taking the buses. On February 3, PMPML collected Rs 97.50 lakh revenue from 6.76 lakh commuters.

Story continues below this ad

Officials said ever since the lockdown, PMPML put only 10 per cent of its buses on the roads. “The service was only for those involved in essential services, like civic employees and medical staff,” an official said, adding that the daily revenue collection had fallen to as low as Rs 1 lakh per day.

It was only in September when full services were restored that the PMPML revenue witnessed improvement. However, passengers intake did not register much improvement until the turn of the year. “From January, things began to change with passengers count shooting up. Though, it is yet to reach the pre-Covid-19 period of 10 lakh passengers a day,” said an official.

Due to the dip in revenue collection, officials said, the PMPML had laid off thousands of temporary employees while some permanent employees were transferred to civic services. “On top of this, the state government also failed to bail out the transport undertaking from the financial crunch,” an official said.

The spokesperson said that the number of buses on road is now same as pre-pandemic period. “Before Covid-19 restrictions came into force, we used to run 1,500 buses. We have reached that level now. Of the 1,500 buses, 1,100 are PMPML owned while 400 belong to private contractors,” Gate said.

Story continues below this ad

As for the breakdown of buses, Gate added, “We are witnessing only 10-15 per cent breaking down on roads.”

– Stay updated with the latest Pune news. Follow Express Pune on Twitter here and on Facebook here. You can also join our Express Pune Telegram channel here.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


Click here to join Express Pune WhatsApp channel and get a curated list of our stories

Latest Comment
Post Comment
Read Comments
Advertisement
Loading Taboola...
Advertisement