Staff fear KTDFC will gobble new Thampanoor terminus

Thiruvananthapuram: With the KSRTC’s new bus terminal complex at Thampanoor all set to be inaugurated on Feb 3, employees allege that the corporation has not entered into any form of agreement with the Kerala Transport Development Finance Corporation (KTDFC) and they fear that eventually, it will become the sole custodian of the Rs 65 cr terminal.

Currently, the KTDFC has hijacked the claim of sharing a 50 per cent rent-deposit scheme with the loss making corporation where the 10-storeyed structure has around 1.75 lakh sq ft of commercial space.

The new complex coming up under the Build, Operate, Transfer (BOT) mode is expected to be inaugurated by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy early next month.

Work on the terminal began on March 2012 and was expected to be completed in August last. Representatives of the Kerala State Road Transport Employees Association pointed out that when the KTDFC had launched a similar bus terminal complex at Angamaly, there had been no agreement between the two entities.

“Initially, KTDFC had granted only 250 sq ft for the corporation at the Thampanoor complex and after much hue and cry, it was increased to 850 sq ft. Apart from the deposit towards the commercial space, the rent was also to be  shared by the two, which has since been hijacked. Now the situation is that the land belonging to KSRTC has been taken over by KTDFC”, said a senior representative of KSRTEA, which has affiliations to the CPM.

KSRTC needs to be more tech-savvy

Krishna Kumar K E | DC

Kochi: The Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) might have got an allocation of more than Rs 10 cr in the recent State Budget for computerization. However, all the money might run to waste if the corporation fails to switch over to new operating systems and employ IT experts.

The corporation still uses the outdated ‘Disk Operating System’ and the post of ‘Senior Programmer’ has been vacant for more than a year and a half now. 

“The corporation’s IT-related services are pathetic. The online reservation site will crash if more than 200 people avail of the facility simultaneously due to low server capacity. Also, there is no proper search facility as provided by the Karnataka or Tamil Nadu State corporations. If we try to book a ticket on the Tiruvalla-Bangalore bus to be boarded from Thrissur, the result that’s displayed  says: ‘Fare does not exist’. Similarly, no half ticket (for children) can be booked through the site,” said Sujith Bhaktan, who runs a blog updating all activities of the corporation.

“The middle management consists of those who have been promoted from the lower cadres and hence are not aware of modern management techniques and they often find it difficult to handle greater responsibilities. The e-governance programme which got started a few years ago has not created an impact on the KSRTC.” said Biju Prabhakar, IAS.