The BMTC is putting out a tender to lease 1,500 buses, but staff are concerned about privatisation

The cash-strapped Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) has decided to induct 1,500 buses on a lease basis.

On Monday, the BMTC issued a tender for the procurement, service, and maintenance of non-AC diesel buses on a gross cost contract (lease model). By the end of April, the tender is expected to be finished.

“We’ll designate routes and pay the chosen firm per-kilometer. They will be in charge of operations, repairs, and driver deployment. For ticket processing, we’ll have conductors. This would lower the maintenance cost because leasing buses is less costly than running and maintaining our own fleet “a senior official said.

A proposal to induct 1,500 diesel buses under the PPP model was included in the 2017-18 state budget, but it never materialized. According to sources, the state government announced the procurement of 3,000 buses in the 2017-18 budget, with 1,500 on purchase and the rest on lease. BMTC has purchased 857 of the 1,500 buses on the purchase model so far, with 643 more in the final stages of issuing work orders.

The company has now called the tender for the 1,500 on lease model. “This has been delayed for a variety of reasons, including Covid-19 and BMTC board approval delays, but now there is a need to induct more buses to ensure social distancing,” an official said. Just 155 of the 1,268 old buses have been scrapped so far. “Once we get new buses in, we’ll scrap those old ones,” he added.

Employees of the BMTC, on the other hand, have been opposed to the attempt to lease buses because they believe it is part of a privatization scheme. The decision is also important because transportation workers are planning for an indefinite strike beginning on April 7.

Although the utility’s proposal to lease electric buses faced a lack of response, it is hoping for a better response for the diesel buses. According to sources, the BMTC’s previous attempt to induct buses under the lease model failed. Between 1997 and 2005, the company recruited non-AC buses from more than 60 vendors, but they were poorly maintained, and many of them were sitting in depots.