Having learnt a bitter lesson from taking a decision to prematurely scrap many buses from its 190 low-floor Volvo bus fleet, the KSRTC has insisted that bus manufacturers provide a service coordinator on site and also ready a software for preventive maintenance of its new buses.
This was insisted on while procuring the eight AC sleeper buses from Volvo that would operate in the Bengaluru route and while placing orders with Ashok Leyland, the agency’s CMD Biju Prabhakar said.
While stating that timely execution of preventive maintenance would have ensured optimal upkeep of the agency’s buses, he said such a systemic and software-based maintenance system was crucial for a fleet operator like KSRTC that owned over 4,000 buses.
“Repairing the premium low-floor buses set apart for being scrapped would entail an investment of substantial funds, which the agency is not in a position to spare. Over the years, the system in vogue was to carry out repairs after buses broke down or showed signs of breaking down.”
Many other road transport corporations too are facing a similar problem with their premium buses, post the pandemic. They need huge sums to repair their fleet that was idling for over a year, even as their patronage fell, he added.
Sources said ‘dry lease’ (where buses are leased out from private players) was one of the options to ensure their timely upkeep, since the firm that was entrusted with their maintenance would do so as per a pre-fixed schedule. This would also speed up the repair process. ‘Wet lease’ (in which private players provide both the bus and the driver) could also have been adopted but KSRTC had too many drivers, they added.
‘Lifecycle not over’
The first lot of low-floor Volvo buses were procured under the JNNURM project in Kerala in 2008, while the second lot was introduced in 2011. They could operate sans engine trouble for up to 20 lakh kms, KSRTC officials said.
“The decision to scrap vast number of buses could have been averted had there been a proper maintenance regimen in the KSRTC,” sources said.
“A bus has a minimum life cycle of 15 years, even as per European standards. There is a shelf-life maintenance system usually adopted, whereby buses are taken care of when they are not being operated. The KSRTC should have taken turns in operating its low-floor buses, since idling them for more than a month can cause permanent damage to their tyres, batteries and other components. This apart, ‘jump starting’ buses after days of idling can damage their electronic components,” they added.
