by Dr. Manoj Singh, Shikha Juyal and Shashvat Singh
Tuesday, 12th April 2016
Efficient public transport system is pivotal for socio-economic growth and development of a country. It plays a major role in reducing poverty and checking deprivation in hinterlands where public transport is often the only means of transport for the poor. It is not just cheaper but also vital as it saves fuel and curbs pollution.
Bus-based public transport system is an ideal mode to meet the increasing demand for passenger transport services, particularly in the rural areas of India. An efficient bus transport system has the potential to significantly improve the livelihood opportunities of rural populace, besides giving them a greater access to education, healthcare and leisure.
From a mobility perspective, bus transport is more efficient than personal motor vehicles as the former ensures an optimum usage of the available road space and the energy it consumes, by transporting the maximum number of people per unit of road space. For example, a bus carrying 40 passengers uses only 2.5 times more road space than a car that can carry maximum four people. Moreover, on an average, a bus consumes only about three times as much fuel as a four-wheeler. Therefore, it is immensely important that steps are taken to strengthen, promote and popularize a sustainable bus-based public transport system in India.
In India, the law enabling state road transport undertakings dates back to 1950 when the Road Transport Corporation Act was enacted to facilitate the creation of State Road Transport Undertakings (SRTUs) in the states to provide bus-based passenger transport services. As on date, there are 62 SRTUs which continue to dominate the sector in terms of coverage and patronage. However, the performance of many SRTUs reveals that they have not been able to positively augment their operations since nationalisation. Moreover, the share of buses owned by SRTUs as compared to the total number of registered vehicles has been consistently declining. The enormity of the situation is such that as per the latest ‘Review of the Performance of SRTUs (Passenger Services) 2014-15’ published by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Government of India: Bihar has only 2 buses per 10 lakh of population. The situation in many states is also on similar lines, if not worse. Among the states, Karnataka fares the best with 393 buses per 10 lakh of population. However, none of the states meet the standard norm of 400 buses per 10 lakh of population.
Various reasons are attributed to such a scenario; some of them being acute shortage of buses, huge presence of over-aged vehicles, rising personnel and fuel costs, competition, concessions and exemptions, faulty fleet management, inadequate capacity building and absence of fare revision mechanism.
With shrinking spaces and rising population, it is the need of the hour that people are encouraged into using public transport system. So, it is needless to say that certain steps are required on part of the governments and SRTUs to make bus-based transport system reliable, comfortable, safe and efficient.
With this objective, NITI Aayog aims to develop a compendium on ‘Best practices for enhancing availability of bus-based transport system in India’ as one of its tasks for the transport sector in 2016-17. Adoption of such best practices would facilitate improvements in operations, reach, financial viability, infrastructure, management practices, etc. of the SRTUs. One of the focus areas of the compendium would be to explore the role of private sector in provisioning of buses.
(In the Transport vertical of NITI Aayog, Dr. Manoj Singh is the Adviser, Ms. Shikha Juyal is the Economics Officer and Mr. Shashvat Singh is a Young Professional.)
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