Student concession: Suggestions of govt-appointed committee drag

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: State-run KSRTC  has decided to go ahead with the plans to restrict student travel concession overlooking a government-appointed committee that has been constituted to make recommendations on the subject. The recommendations of the three-member committee headed by the planning commission member K Ravi Raman is likely to be delayed by a couple of months,even as its term ended on February 28.

The private bus operators who have been waiting for the recommendation to decide on their action plan will visit Transport Minister Antony Raju to express their concerns, on Thursday. 

“It is unacceptable that the government allowed KSRTC to make a unilateral decision while we have been asked to wait till the committee completes the study. We will inform the minister that we will be forced to go on strike if there is no hike in student concession after April 1,” said the general convener of Kerala State Private Bus Operators Federation (KSPBOF), T Gopinathan.  

The KSRTC management said the travel concession caused a financial burden of Rs 966.31 crore from 2016 to 2020. KSRTC gives student travel concessions only in its ordinary bus service.

The private bus operators pointed out that if KSRTC made a loss of Rs 966 crore for carrying students in 1500 ordinary buses between 2016 and 2020, the 12,000 private buses made a loss of Rs 8000 crore during the period. The student concession was last fixed at Rs 2 in 2012. The private bus operators are worried that the loss will be more in the coming days as the entire burden of carrying students will be on them after the KSRTC decided to restrict the student travel concession. 

“It is only natural that the students will choose private bus over KSRTC when there is a restriction,” said former Director of National Transportation Planning & Research Centre (NATPAC), and a member of the government-appointed committee to study student concession, BG Sreedevi.

She said the committee plans to provide a solution by upholding the interests of the students and the bus operators. Kerala State Private Bus Operators Federation (KSPBOF), the umbrella organization of bus operators in the state, has been demanding a student fare hike since March 24, 2021. They demanded that the minimum concession fare should be fixed at Rs 6. Justice M Ramachandran Commission, a single-man commission tasked to find ways to address the problems in the sector, also recommended the concession rate to be fixed at Rs 5. However, the government decided to postpone the decision even when the general fare was increased in May last year. 

The private bus operators wanted the student concession rates to be increased because they think raising the general bus fare beyond a limit would further alienate passengers. They pointed out that people have already switched to alternative arrangements for travelling since the Covid lockdown period.