Hyderabad: Operations of the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) are back in full steam, but its financial situation is precarious with losses of over Rs 928 crore being registered in the 2018-19 fiscal.
This is despite the State government extending financial assistance of Rs 662.39 crore. While the revenue generated was Rs 4,882.72 crore, the expenditure incurred was Rs 5,811.39 crore. Of the total revenue generated, Rs 2,829 crore was spent on employees’ salaries.
The 52-day strike will make the corporation bleed further as it will have a cascading effect on the revenue. Going by the current expenditure, authorities estimate the losses to be around Rs 1,200 crore this fiscal. Apart from extending financial assistance, the government, two days ago, hiked the ticket fares by 20p/km to help the corporation tide over the current situation. The fares were last revised in 2013.
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The new fares, which come into effect from Monday, will help generate about Rs 800 crore. But, this would only be enough to meet the annual expenditure, while the accumulated losses continue to remain, a senior official said. “The State government is definitely doing its bit to save the corporation. Now, it is for the employees to shift the corporation from the red zone to green zone by cutting down losses and increasing ticket revenue,” he said.
There are two financial issues that RTC has to address immediately. As per High Court orders, Rs 200 crore has to be paid to the TSRTC Employees Thrift and Credit Cooperative Society Limited before December 17. This apart, Rs 788.30 crore has to go towards Provident Fund and if the corporation fails to pay up, it will be prosecuted.