Pvt operators push HRTC in the red: CAG

Tribune News Service

Shimla, April 9

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report from 2011-16 has put the State Transport Department and the Himachal Roads Transport Corporation (HRTC) on the mat for their failure to provide a “safe and efficient transport for public”.

While the HRTC’s losses mounted to over Rs 1,018.64 crore from 2011 to 2016, the State Transport Department gave private operators free run to make fast bucks, allowing them to operate their vehicles on profitable routes.

Also, the corporation failed to create the state-of-art-workshops for safe public transport and the department failed to put in place speed governors and vehicle tracking system, revealed the CAG report tabbed in the Vidhan Sabha last week. The report accessed by The Tribune revealed that the HRTC operated its fleet of 2,827 buses on just “10 profitable routes”. On the other hand, the department allowed private operators to ply 3,345 buses on 90 per cent of profitable routes.

The reason: The department fixed “no criteria and made no clear-cut policy for safe and efficient transport for five lakh passengers,” revealed auditors. The state government also failed to put in place a mechanism to share the burden of uneconomical routes between the HRTC and private operators. The bids for the profitable routes would have generated more revenue for state, the auditors observed.

CAG exposed the hollow claims of Transport Minister GS Bali that the HRTC would set up workshops. The auditors detected inconsistency in recording “dead km”, a distance a bus travels from the ISBT to the parking space at Jagatpur.