ETM shortage results in cancelling of bus services

Kochi: After staff shortage, it is now the dearth of Electronic Ticket Machines (ETMs) that is putting the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation in a tight spot. According to officials, the shortage of machines has forced the authorities to cancel about 25 percent of its services from the Ernakulam depot over the last one month. As of now, the depot operates about 400 trips in 178 schedules with just 30 ETMs, which, in turn, is making the employees to shy away from duty.

Further, the allocation of buses to operate Sabarimala services, coupled with the 10 percent shortage in conductors has added to this problem “Ordinary buses, which have more passenger patronage, are the most affected as conductors without machines find it difficult to issue spot ticket,” pointed out T.P. Venu, district secretary,  Kerala State Road Transport Employees Association (KSRTEA), attributing the shortage in machines to stoppage of technical assistance by the company that provided the earlier batch of machines.

Most of the conductors are unfamiliar with the use of manual ticket ra ks, which consumes much time for tallying the ticket charge and the additional workload is forcing them to take duty leaves, he added.  Acknowledging the problem, top KSRTC officials said that steps are in place to introduce GPRS enabled ETMs in the depot. 

“There is a reluctance from part of conductors whenever they are asked to do double duty but this will be soon sorted out with the rolling out of a new batch of machines’’, said Radhakrishnan Nair, assistant transport officer, Ernakulam depot.