The Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC), which was previously incurring losses, has now turned profitable. A similar turnaround has been witnessed in the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC), both of which fall under the leadership of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. Industry Minister Uday Samant, speaking on behalf of the Chief Minister, suggested that when the responsible minister actively engages on the field rather than managing operations remotely, remarkable transformations can occur. This remark was perceived as a critique aimed at former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.
“The state government-run public transport (ST) service is making a profit in only six states. In Maharashtra, the corporation gets financial help, as and when required, from the government. But in the last two to four years, the ST corporation was running in losses. It did not have enough money to pay the employees their salaries. The Shinde-Fadnavis-Pawar government has successfully pulled the corporation out of such a dire situation,” Samant said.
MSRTC Transformation Leads to Profits and Reduced Subsidies
According to Samant, during the Uddhav Thackeray government, the losses to the corporation kept increasing. “Due to a complete shutdown of traffic during the COVID lockdown period, the ST corporation faced a loss of Rs 6,300 crore between March 2020 and March 2021. During the previous government, when Ajit Pawar was the finance minister, the government decided to pay Rs 300 crore per month for salaries. But after Shinde became CM, a decision to provide free travel to senior citizens (75 years and above) was taken and Rs 100 crore was paid as compensation to ST. Another R180 cr were paid for giving a 50 per cent discount to women passengers. The total compensation amounts to Rs 300-350 cr,” he said.
Out of the 31 divisions of the State Transport (ST) service in Maharashtra, 18 have reported profits in the current year. Beed district leads the list, with Parbhani and Jalgaon ranking second and third, respectively. Additionally, the government’s subsidy for ST employee wages has progressively diminished, reaching zero. This indicates that the ST service is now self-sustaining and covering its own expenses,” Samant explained.