Mumbai, Mar 20 (PTI) Maharashtra minister Pratap Sarnaik on Friday said the state road transport body is currently not facing any issue in terms of diesel availability to run buses despite the conflict in West Asia, and added that its fuel supply will remain steady for the next two months.
He, however, noted that the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) does not have any plan B ready to tackle the situation in case the fuel supply stops.
Talking to PTI Videos, Transport Minister Sarnaik said, “Due to the gas (LPG) crunch, many of our restaurants have shut their operations, and many more are staring at closures. The ongoing war will certainly pose some difficulties before us.” On the fuel supply situation in the MSRTC, which runs around 15,800 buses across the state, Sarnaik said, “So far, we are getting oil and diesel. We are not facing any trouble at present.” “MSRTC’s Managing Director spoke to Indian Oil Corporation officials, who said priority-wise allocation of fuel from the central government is done to the defence department first, followed by the railways, and third to the state corporations to avoid service interruptions. This secures the entire supply of diesel (to the MSRTC) for the next two months,” he said.
He added, “We can’t even have a plan B…The only plan B is that there is fuel for two months. If the Indian Oil Corporation or our government do not have diesel or petrol for two months then even we won’t be able to do anything.” Reacting to a question whether electric buses can be an option in such a scenario, Sarnaik said they will be able to offer limited relief as MSRTC operates only around 780 such vehicles.
“Our entire road transport system cannot run on 780 electric buses, we can only use them on some routes. But we cannot provide all the facilities to the commuters,” he said.
Addressing a press conference later, Sarnaik said the MSRTC currently requires 10.87 lakh litres of diesel daily, which comes to 40 crore litres annually and costs about Rs 3,400 crore.
“This cost is likely to go up to Rs 4,700 crore with the planned induction of 8,300 new diesel-run buses,” he said.
Sarnaik said the MSRTC is expected to save Rs 241 crore annually through the new diesel procurement arrangement.
Indian Oil has offered an average discount of Rs 5.13 per litre diesel to the MSRTC. “This is for the first time in Maharashtra’s history that the MSRTC has received such a large discount,” he said.
This will result in saving Rs 2.13 per litre for the transport body, which comes to around Rs 241 crore annually, he said.
MSRTC Vice Chairman and Managing Director Madhav Kusekar said that despite the ongoing war in West Asia, there is no issue of diesel supply to MSRTC.
Minister Sarnaik said at 233 locations in Maharashtra, Indian Oil Corporation, which has emerged as the lowest bidder, is going to supply diesel to the MSRTC, while at 91 locations, close to Gujarat and Goa border, the transport body will re-invite a tender to avoid loss of income to the state through Value Added Tax (VAT).
“The oil corporation was going to supply diesel from Gujarat, which would have benefited the MSRTC, but the state would have faced a revenue loss. Therefore, we have scrapped the tender process for the supply of diesel from Gujarat and are going to call for fresh tenders,” he said.
Sarnaik said the MSRTC is currently reeling under accumulated losses of around Rs 12,000 crore, with nearly Rs 750 crore losses registered till February in the ongoing financial year alone.
In order to generate additional revenue for the transport corporation, tenders have been invited to set up petrol pumps at 111 locations, he said.
“Through the land rent and fuel sales, we expect to earn Rs 1 crore from each of these 111 locations,” the minister added.
As the corporation faces four to five per cent loss for every 100 litres of fuel, it plans to use AI-based sensors, which will raise its savings, according to Sarnaik. PTI PS KK NP
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