The Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) board is mulling constitution of a committee to look into revision of fares of buses operated by the public transporter.
Cash-strapped for years, the DTC’s fares have remained static for almost a decade. The last revision was affected in 2009.
CAG report
In 2014-15, the DTC incurred its highest total as well as operational loss of the past five financial years and failed to add a single new bus to its fleet, said a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General. The CAG report found that the total loss for the DTC in 2014-2015 was ₹2,917.75 crore.
The issue of the DTC’s financial health came to the fore in a meeting of its board on June 25 during a discussion on the government’s decision to unfreeze financial benefits to DTC employees and its resulting financial impact, where the board also observed that the Finance Department had already released ₹649.47 crore to the DTC as grant-in-aid.
However, government sources said the committee is yet to be set up. Minutes of the meeting reveal a suggestion by the Principal Secretary (Finance) — that the DTC should come up with a proposal to explore the scope for an alternate source of revenue to make the corporation financially viable.
“It was pointed out that DTC fares had not been revised since 2009, notwithstanding the cost of men and material which has increased manifold. The Principal Secretary [Finance], Government of NCT of Delhi, was of the view that the DTC should immediately examine and move a proposal regarding fare revision to the Administrative Department,” the minutes recorded.
The minutes added that the Principal Secretary (Finance) had suggested setting up of a committee at the level of the Commissioner (Transport), or any other senior officer from the Transport Department, senior officers from the Finance Department, the DTC and the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation to examine revenue generation avenues for the DTC “so as to bring about improvement in the financial health of the DTC and reduction in non-critical expenses”.
Financial health
The board, the minutes stated, agreed to the suggestions made by the Finance Department with regard to the financial health of the DTC and “desired that a proposal be moved by the DTC to the Administrative Department for constitution of the committee to examine” the issues related to these.
The CAG report stated that from 2010-2011 to 2014-2015, the DTC racked up losses of a whopping ₹11,962.09 crore, while operational losses in the same period were ₹5,022.05 crore. The operational loss of ₹1,273.19 crore in 2014-2015 was also the highest in the previous five financial years.