With passengers' number witnessing a tremendous fall after last month's disaster that hit the State on June 16-17, the Uttarakhand Transport Corporation incurs a loss of Rs 47 lakh per day. Thus, so far, the department incurred a loss of around Rs 14 crore during a month span.
According to sources, the department fixed per day business target of Rs 1.5 crore from June 1 onwards. Accordingly, a strategy was formulated to meet the target. In the beginning, its fleet of buses earned as per expectations. A senior official claimed that income touched the Rs 1.4 crore mark during the span of a fortnight, more than four times.
Meanwhile, disaster happened in the State, affecting business prospects severely. From Rs 1.4 crore, the daily business of the UTC dipped below Rs 1 crore. Presently, it stands somewhere between Rs 85 lakh to Rs 90 lakh per day. Decrease in daily income has come as a blue from the bolt for the UTC.
Apart from it, UTC has suffered a massive damage to its infrastructure across the State. Flash floods washed away UTC workshop in Srinagar. One of its diesel tank also met the same fate. Several of its buildings in Pithoragarh, Ranikhet, loha Ghat and Almora developed cracks.
General Manager RK Yadav said that the department has almost assessed the total loss caused by the disaster. Apart from the everyday loss being caused by dip in number of passengers, the disaster also caused
damage to UTC buildings at several places. UTC was expecting a record business this year since beginning was very good. However, disaster changed the scenario. Now, the UTC buses struggle to get passengers on a daily basis. Passengers' inflow has gone down massively. "It seems that something has blocked the passengers' inflow," an officer said, adding that restoration of normal passenger inflow will take time.