Public Road Transport a Neglected Sector – M L Yadav

In passenger and goods road transport, the presence of public sector is becoming small and shrinking. The railways, which is the other mode of surface transport in the reach of common man is not in a position to expand as needed or penetrate into interior rural-tribal areas to be accessible to mass population below poverty line. There is no serious effort on budgetary provision in this direction.
The private sector operators on which the Union and state governments put on trust and thrust of expansion of the road transport sector are not interested to go to rural-hill-tribal areas. They are interested on profit-making national highways and state highways — again in both passenger and goods transport.
While the demand of passenger transport is at 12 per cent and goods transport is much higher the production of commercial vehicles for internal use in the country is not to the tune and age-old vehicles continue to run on roads. They are creating havoc on roads with increased accidents resulting in heavy loss of life, physical handicap of lakhs of road users and also damage to property.
The passive policy of the Union and state governments has resulted in manifold increase in cars on roads meeting the needs of upper middle class and a portion of middle class segment population mostly in cities and to some extent the rich peasantry living in towns and villages. The middle class and above and below poverty line population’s segment is around 70 per cent in cities, towns and villages. They are forced to depend upon the three wheeler or seven-seater autos as a mode of public transport. The phenomenal increase in the strength of two wheelers is an added menace in cities and towns and especially on highways.
The result is heavy congestion of roads, wear and tear and heavy pollution apart from heavy incidence of accidents — more and more deaths and increased number of physically handicapped persons. These segments of automotives are less taxed and provided more infrastructure facilities. This set of vehicles consumes most of the fuel, which is subsidised by the Union government, which is a burden on the finances of the country.
Instead, if our proposals to expand state transport undertakings are implemented:
(a) For every Rs 100 crore capital investment 1,000 buses of ordinary type or 600 ones of a mix of ordinary, express and luxury buses can be brought on road.
(b) These vehicles will take the load of 4,000 three wheeler and seven-seater autos or 8,000 cars or 20,000 two wheelers on road. This will bring down congestion and reduce scope of accidents resulting in saving life and physical handicap of road users.
(c) This also results in planned accessibility of reliable travelling facilities to the population, right from most interior rural and tribal areas to towns and cities at affordable cost and convenience.
(d) Well regulated maintenance will save consumption of fuel that is diesel and compressed natural gas and release the pressure on the demand of petrol, which in turn will contribute to the economy of the country.
(e) This shift in policy may definitely result in loss of demand and consequent reduction in production of three wheeler and seven-seater autos, two wheelers and cars but the demand and production of commercial vehicles will be manifold which will strengthen the manufacturing industry. Thus, the employment potentiality will not be affected largely. However, the sections of people who don’t prefer public transport can still hang on to two wheelers and cars.
(f) The employment generation with job security in public sector road transport would be between six-to-seven per vehicle directly and three-to-five per vehicle indirectly.
(g) Many studies have been conducted by various expert committees regarding the desirability of buses to be deployed per 1,00,000 population to meet adequately their travel needs of all sorts— educational, commercial, medical, social, cultural and tourism, etc. The agreed norm nationally is 80 buses per 1,00,000 population. The people who look towards public transport in our country are estimated to be over and above 70 per cent of 120 crore. As per the norm detailed above 6,72,000 buses have to be deployed. At present, there are only around 2,75,000 buses both public and private sector together deployed in passenger transport as stage carriers.
This shows a gap of 3,97,000 buses. The capital input required as cost of these buses would be only Rs 40,000 crores and the cost of infrastructure like depots and bus stations and maintenance garages, which are taken care of at present by private operators, may be Rs 8,000 crore.
The total investment thus will not be more than Rs 48,000 crore on national dimension. The employment generation would be to the extent of 24,00,000 directly and 12,00,000 indirectly. There is no other industry, which can generate such high incidence of employment for the said investment.
We, in our policy document have discussed the advantages of passenger road transport vis-a-vis railways and metro rail projects. We have further pointed out as to how the concessions of travel cost can be directly delivered to the targeted social groups through state transport undertakings without hassle.
We would like to draw some of the aspects of goods transport also which were detailed in our policy document:
(a) At present 81 per cent of goods transport is handled by private road transport and 19 per cent (vital items) by railways. There is no participation of public sector in goods road transport during the six decades since Independence. The daily needs of people of the country are totally handled by the private operators. Among them are very few organised into companies and there is no corporate organisation developed in the country.
(b) The private goods road transport is indulging in illicit transfer of essential items in violation of various statutes in the country. Tax-evasion through dubious transit documents is a known factor and corruption at check points need not be enumerated here.
(c) The food grains, pulses and other essential items distributed through public distribution system and regulated by state civil supplies departments are moved by private sector goods road transport and at least 30 to 40 per cent of these transmissions are reaching black market at the suffering of targeted sections. Petroleum products from public sector undertakings are also contracted to be transported through private tankers. Even the drinking water supplied in cities, towns and villages are channelised through private tankers. There is no effective implementation system to ensure these supplies reach to the targeted sections of people. The governments spend money and energies and yet blamed for inefficient delivery system.
(d) We suggested that at this level and stage the public sector goods road transport should be introduced to have counter balance to the irregularities of private sector goods road transport and corrupt machinery. A humble beginning can be made by the state transport undertakings initially. The passenger vehicles after run of say, 0.5 lakh kilometres can be converted as goods carriers and or as tankers. The state transport undertakings can be entrusted with the intra-state civil supplies transportation. This will not result in extra capital expenditure and require affordable operational cost only. The vehicles can be sealed at loading point and opened at delivery point.
(e) Naturally, the transportation charges would be economical and supplies would be timely. The goods transportation would earn profit for state transport undertakings, which can be utilised for the improvement of passenger amenities. Any mode of transport wing will earn profit on goods transport and not on passenger transport.
(f) In the present scenario of militancy and terrorism unwarranted transportation of weapons and other destructive material can be detected by concentrating on private goods carriers more diligently with the available inspection staff at check posts.
There are around two crore unorganised workers engaged in private sector road transport. They do not get any benefit of social security measures even to the meagre level now provided in the statutes since there is no implementation machinery available in the states. The expansion of public sector naturally strengthens the unorganised workers to be organised and force the private managements to improve the working conditions of private sector road transport workers.
The state transport undertakings can play a vital role in imparting training to drivers in a big way so that efficient personnel are deployed on vehicles to ply safely on roads.
*(The author is the general secretary of the National Federation of Indian Road Transport Workers)