It will no longer be easy for the States to avail funds to purchase buses under the extended scheme of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).
With most of the State Transport Undertakings (STUs) reporting losses in maintaining and operating buses, the Union Urban Development Ministry has for the first time decided to make it mandatory for the States to give an undertaking for bearing the losses before they could seek funds under the extended scheme of the JNNURM being implemented from this year. In the extended scheme of the Mission, the Government will provide extra 10,000 buses with special allocation for hilly States, as per the annual budget 2013-14.
Before the release of first installment of the additional central assistance (ACA) for the bus funding projects under the Mission, the States will have to submit an undertaking with concurrence of their finance department that the State Government will bear operational losses in operation and maintenance of city buses if it cannot be met from dedicated transport fund of city level.
“This is for the first time that we have decided to crack a whip on the callous States to make them accountable. Because of their apathy in providing support, many cities or Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) are in acute financial crunch in maintaining and operating the city buses. “As a result, the modern buses which have life of 12-15 years are frequently breaking down on roads and even idling due to non-repairing. SPVs/bus operators are facing huge loses,” said a senior official from the UD Ministry. In the first phase of the JNNURM, the government had approved 15,620 buses in 2009-10 in 61 mission cities but most of the public vehicles are in a poor shape.
The State Governments seeking funds under the extended schemes have to pay the losses to city/SPV before 2 or 3 months of closing of that financial year. In case they fail to do so, no fund will be released to them, the official said. The States have also been asked to generate additional innovative resources apart from the fare revenues. “All the city authorities and State Government are advised to set up at the earliest the Urban Transport Fund (UTF) to help generate revenue from non-fare box as well as to make city bus operations sustainable,” the official added.