Thiruvananthapuram: Private bus operators, who have been facing severe financial losses and a dearth of passengers due to the KSRTC’s free travel scheme for women, ‘Priyadarshini’, are now pinning their hopes on government intervention.

Transport Minister C P John recently confirmed that private buses operating along the same routes as the Priyadarshini services are incurring daily losses between ₹1,500 and ₹2,000. The Minister also stated that the government would step in immediately to resolve the issue.

Private bus owners are heavily relying on this upcoming government intervention. The road tax concessions currently granted are insufficient to cover their daily losses. Consequently, private operators have expressed their willingness to lease their buses, along with their routes, to the KSRTC. However, the government has not yet made a definitive decision on this proposal.

The government has allocated ₹800 crore annually to KSRTC to fund the free travel scheme. If the government takes over private buses and operates them as ordinary services, the travel concessions will have to be extended to them as well. Alternatively, a suggestion was made to profitably deploy these buses on long-distance routes. However, the challenge remains that withdrawing buses from local routes could lead to severe commuting difficulties for passengers.

Meanwhile, the government is also considering a rescheduling of KSRTC bus timetables to mitigate the losses of private operators. The move aims to alter the schedules of ordinary buses on routes where they previously engaged in competitive racing with private buses, ensuring that passengers face no inconvenience.

To ensure that private buses also get a fair share of passengers, the departure times of KSRTC buses will be adjusted by five to 10 minutes. The free travel scheme is currently implemented across 3,125 ordinary buses. Preliminary assessments suggest that 40 per cent of these schedules directly impact private bus operators.

The current schedules were originally designed to maximise revenue. On certain routes, KSRTC buses used to race competitively with private buses to secure passengers. This practice continued even after the introduction of the free travel scheme. There are also complaints that an excessive number of Priyadarshini ordinary buses are operating on certain routes. It is hoped that the rescheduling of timetables will resolve these issues.