Tamil Nadu's transport undertakings continue to annually incur losses due to increase in operational costs arising out of the huge petroleum products and wage bills. Last financial year, it was really bad.

In 2010-11, the loss more than doubled to Rs 1,453 crore (pre-audit) as compared with Rs 699 crore (pre-audit) in the previous year. This was due to wage revision, diesel price increase and non-revision of fare for the last ten years, Mr V. Senthilbalaji, State Minister for Transport, said in the department's Policy Note for the year 2010-11.

There are eight State Transport Undertakings functioning under the administrative control of the Transport Department. These undertakings, which own 21,169 buses, carry 2.10 crore passengers each day. In Chennai Metropolitan Area alone, over 55 lakh passengers travel daily in the Metropolitan Transport Corporation buses.

Oil companies periodically revise the price of petroleum products depending up on global market prices. The high speed diesel price has been increased 138 per cent since the last revision of bus fare in the year 2001. The State Transport Undertakings are incurring 44 per cent of the total revenue towards diesel cost. The expenditure on consumption of diesel for the State Transport Undertakings was Rs 2,468 crore in the 2010-11, the policy note says.

The fare per kilometre in Tamil Nadu is the lowest in the country. The fare in the State has not been revised since December 2001 in the interest of the travelling public. This is despite increase in diesel cost and establishment costs.

Wage bill

As per the settlement, employees of State Transport Undertakings are eligible for increase of wages. The wage increase ranges from a minimum of Rs 2,000 a month to a maximum of Rs 4,543 a month per employee. The State Transport Undertakings are incurring 58.36 per cent of the total revenue towards establishment costs, the note says.

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