230 Thane Municipal Transport buses rotting at depots

Some of the buses are stuck at the depots for so long that their working life is over. Pic/Gandharva Purohit

Saddled with over 230 public transport buses that are lying in a poor state at its depots for want of repairs, the Thane Municipal Transport is making desperate attempts to salvage some of the vehicles and bring them back on the roads.

TMT Chairman Vilas Joshi, who took over last month, said he will leave no stone unturned in getting the buses fixed. Some of the buses have been waiting for so long that their working life is over.

"It is not that there have been no efforts. Proposals to repair these buses have been sent earlier too but had been rejected. Funds were never an issue. The problem was that the proposals sent to Thane Municipal Corporation had not been processed correctly as per requirements of the accounts department. This led to rejections and delays. But now we have set that right," Joshi told mid-day.

The senior TMT official said they have now prepared the proposals in a professional manner. He said, "We are hopeful that whatever buses can be salvaged will be done."

The 31-year-old transport body wants to make its Volvo buses roadworthy at the earliest as they provide a smoother ride to commuters. "We have 30 Volvos in our fleet of which about ten are operational. My priority is to get the rest of them back in action," he said, adding that TMT has also sent a proposal to procure 200 new buses.

Sources said TMT has a fleet of 517 buses of which 277 belong to the Thane Municipal Corporation and the rest are run by a private party on a Gross Cost Contract. A GCC is an arrangement where city bus operations and maintenance are carried out by a private player and payments are made on the basis of factors like kilometres covered per bus and service hours. The revenue risk - fare collection and retention - lies with the transport body.

However, TMT runs a handful of its own buses. Before March, 290 buses belonging to TMT and its contractor plied on Thane roads. The number has now come down to 210 due to limited routes and passengers.

At a review meeting at its Wagle depot last week, it was revealed that many buses had been grounded for maintenance and petty repairs due to lack of funds. "The delay and the wait has been so much that the lifetime of many buses is almost over now," Joshi said.

Challenge us on merit, TMT dares BEST

TMT's new boss Vilas Joshi said the drastic reduction in BEST fares has killed the competition, making it difficult for TMT to manage operations. He has appealed to the state government to introduce standard fares for all public transport buses in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. "Earlier, the Thane-Borivli fare of BEST buses was about R110 and TMT was about R85 or so and people used to come to us. But now, the BEST has slashed it to R25 causing a huge loss. This is unfair, and if our civic body also gives us funds like the BMC is giving to BEST, we can also slash fares. Let the competition be on merit and not just fares," Joshi said, adding that he has urged Thane Guardian Minister and MMRDA chairman Eknath Shinde for the same.

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