Devendra Fadnavis urges Maharashtra CM to intervene and resolve financial crisis of MSRTC

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Devendra Fadnavis has urged Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to take steps to resolve Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) financial crisis. He said that the employees of the loss-making transport corporation are in dire financial and emotional stress because of delays in payment of salaries. 

In the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, Anil Parad handles the transport portfolio. In a letter to the chief minister, Fadnavis said that there have been cases of MSRTC workers committing suicide due to awful financial condition. "I appeal to you to intervene in the matter and resolve the financial crisis of MSRTC employees," Fadnavis said in the state Assembly. 

Last week, an MSRTC driver, Kamlesh Bhikan Bedse, 44, had allegedly committed suicide in Dhule district. On a suicide note, Bedse said that he was fed up with delay in pay and low salary due to which he was unable to pay his debts.

MSRTC, which runs state transport buses across Maharashtra except for Mumbai and Pune, has been under financial stress for quite some time. With a fleet of around 18,500 buses, the transport corporation has around one lakh employees and catered around 6.7 million commuters every day before the pandemic. However, currently, MSRTC is facing an annual loss of around Rs 7,500 crore.

Rising fuel prices adding Rs 2 crore loss per day to MSRTC, says Anil Parab

Last month, Maharashtra transport minister Anil Parab said that the rise in fuel prices was adding Rs 2 crore per day to the loss-making MSRTC. He also informed that "to decrease the losses, we have started a goods transport service and have deployed 1,100 buses for it, which will soon be increased to 2,200 in the next six months. As of now, we have no proposal to increase ticket prices. A ticket hike is one of the options we can think of."

Parab, a senior Shiv Sena leader, had also informed that MSRTC has placed orders for around 150 electric buses, which will be deployed on routes within 400 kilometres rage. The minister informed that Mumbai-Aurangabad, Nashik Pune, Pune-Aurangabad, Nasik-Mumbai are some prefered routes for electric bus deployment.