BMTC’s plan to sell rattling old buses to NWKRTC raises eyebrows

BENGALURU: A controversy is brewing over the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation’s (BMTC) plans to sell its scrapped buses to North West Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (NWKRTC) for just Rs 50,000 each. This has raised questions over passenger safety.

State-run transport utilities, which had suffered heavily due to the pandemic, seem to be looking at unusual ways to make up for the losses and cut costs. The BMTC is planning to sell buses which have run 8.5 lakh km and are more than 11 years old to the NWKRTC which is looking to replinish and expand its fleet. The NWKRTC plans to run these buses in the rural parts of its service areas.

BMTC vice-chairman M R Venkatesh

M R Venkatesh, the vice-chairman of BMTC, justified the move saying those buses are still in running condition but are being scrapped as they have clocked the prescribed kilometers and age. Under RTO rules, these buses can be still be run after reconditioning, he claimed. He also added that it would not lead to any problems.

We made the proposal and NWKRTC agreed. We had planned to give away 100 buses for free, but our audit department said this could lead to audit objections. They suggested a price of Rs 1 lakh per vehicle. The board of directors is meeting this month and a formal proposal will be made later. Instead of selling them to private parties, we thought it would be better to run them in rural areas.
—M R Venkatesh, the vice-chairman of BMTC.

Regarding electric buses, an agreement has already been signed for supply of 90 buses in the first phase, which have been delivered. In the second phase, 300 more buses will be delivered. “Under a central government scheme to give thrust to electric buses, we expect to get 830 more vehicles for BMTC”, he said.

To a question on operating cost, Venkatesh said that only after running the electric buses for about 6 months to a year, their cost efficiency can be gauged.

Regarding women’s safety, he said the electric buses have CCTV cameras and the latest technologies.