End government monopoly in public bus transport services

Sub: petition in Public Interest to open up public bus transport services in the city (as well as in the state) to private players, across a level playing field.

The city of Bangalore is supposedly adding some 1300 vehicles onto its roads on an average everyday. And, the percentage of cars in this is steadily on the increase. Such a colossal rate of increase of vehicle population is leading to the increased choking of the city roads, with grid-locked situations in different parts of the city becoming the order of the day.

The city and citizens are losing out very heavily on account of this on very many counts, in terms of increased commuting time, increased cost of travel, increased pollution (both air & noise), loss of tree cover, lower overall productivity on account of all of the above, etc.

The governments answer seems to be to just go on increasing the road widths, without appreciating the fact that within a few days time, the increased widths also get choked up with more and more vehicles.

Another of their solutions is the METRO. But, that is at best a solution in the long-term, besides being extremely expensive.

The most simple and cost effective answer is efficient and well-connected public bus transport services. Today, however, this field is the monopoly of the government-owned BMTC. And, that is where the entire problem lies.

BMTC does not have the managerial capacity to measure up to the task, nor can it be expected to gear itself up to do it in the near future, largely because of its monopoly status.

The simple answer again is to facilitate the entry of reputed organized sector private players like TVS (TVS was once a bus service provider in the city of Madurai) into the fray. The present rules do not allow for that. It is tailored, under the existing license-permit raaj, to allow only the notorious blue-line (Delhi) kind of operations, which only provides ready fodder for the die-hard opponents of the private sector.

Even if BMTC somehow organizes itself to improve its services, competition can only help improve it further. The benefits of competition, as well-known, are evident in the many other fields, like telephony, airline services, banking, insurance, courier services, TV programming & broadcast, which were all opened out to competition over the last decade.

A policy paper, based on the recommendations made by the Ministry of Petroleum, GoI, giving the outlines along which this could be done, can be accessed at http://praja.in/blog/murali772/2007/12/12/better-bussing-green-bangalore. It also lists out the likely scenario emerging within a few months of the policy being implemented. Though, everyone who has bothered to read it readily agrees with the overall concept, very few are prepared to back it openly, because it is seen as politically incorrect.

The report by The Energy Research Institute ( TERI), saying more or less the same thing, can be accessed at http://www.teriin.org/index.php?option=com_publication&task=details&sid=190&theme=

And, if our cities are to be saved and taken along the path of sustainable development, there is only this way to go. Apart from that are the immense benefits that will accrue in very many ways to the city because of this one reform in this key infrastructure sector.

The above apart, reproduced here is the quote by Mr Siddappa Kaller, Dharwad RTO, published in the Indian Express on the 26th Feb, 05, following the stabilization of private bus service operations there, pursuant to the decision of the Sri S M Krishna government to allow for operation of stage carriage services(the official term for regular bus services) by private sector players up to a radius of 20 km from the city centre, in cities other than Bangalore. It reads as follows Our decision to allow private operators to venture into public transport has yielded results, in that there is healthy competition between NWKRTC and private operators, fares have become competitive, and above all people are happy".

The Sri S M Krishna government left out Bangalore at that stage, as a tactical measure, considering the powerful vested interests lined up here against the proposal. The idea, of course, was to introduce it here also once the services stabilised in the other cities. As such, when the position in Dharwad is as stated by none less than the RTO himself, why should the people of Bangalore continue to be deprived of the benefits of competition?

Based on the above, Sir, I submit this petition to you to dismantle the present license-permit raaj, and to open up public bus transport services in the city (as well as in the state) to private sector players, across a level playing field, by adopting the a public bus transport policy, more or less on the lines, of the policy paper linked earlier.