Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Transport Minister K.B. Ganesh Kumar on Wednesday said that KSRTC (Kerala State Road Transport Corporation) incurred a loss of ₹4.7 crore due to the recent nationwide strike.

He added that there is no way to recover the loss. The minister said the strike severely impacted KSRTC’s revenue, which had recently shown improvement.

“In the last few days, collections were strong, even crossing ₹8 crore. Daily losses had come down from ₹2.5 crore to just ₹18 lakh. If KSRTC collects ₹8.4 crore a day, even after paying ₹1.19 crore to the loan consortium, we would still be running at a profit,” he explained. On the day of the strike, however, KSRTC suffered a loss of ₹4.7 crore, he confirmed.

Addressing criticism over his earlier statement that KSRTC buses would operate during the strike, Ganesh Kumar defended his stance.

“As someone who has taken a constitutional oath of office, I cannot say buses won’t run. I made that statement in my capacity as minister. If someone approaches the court tomorrow and asks why buses didn’t operate, we need to be prepared. Management made every effort. But if workers don’t show up, how can we operate? It’s not their fault, they chose to join the protest," he added.