Shimla: The kind of decisions the Himachal government is taking in favour of HRTC, there is every possibility of it becoming profitable in the coming time. On Friday, the corporation’s MD, Rohan Chand Thakur, gave his presentation on bringing the corporation out of losses, after which the government has taken two important decisions. One of these is the decision to take away the loss-making routes from HRTC and give them to private bus operators. In this, HRTC will stop bus services on 168 loss-making routes, and unemployed youth can run their buses on those routes, for which they will have to apply to the corporation.
The important thing in this is that the government has given relaxation in the policy that it had made earlier regarding bus routes. That is, a 60-40 ratio was kept for giving these routes to private bus operators, in which 60 percent of the bus route will be in rural areas and 40 percent will be included in the state or national highway, due to which the government has given relaxation. However, a decision has not been taken yet on which routes these are. HRTC has advertised more than 200 such routes, for some of which applications have been received, and now the government has given relaxation in the policy in 168.
Currently, the state government is giving an annual grant of Rs 700 crore to HRTC. The government is taking many types of facilities from HRTC. In this, police personnel were also being given travel facilities by taking a monthly fare of Rs 250, which has now been stopped by the government. At the same time, the government is giving many more free travel facilities, in return for which the corporation has to give an annual grant. HRTC employees get a salary from this grant, while pensioners are given a pension. This decision of the government will save Rs 14 crore annually.