Chennai sources have reported that for the first time in its history, the Tamilnadu government decided to separate political ambitions from bus fares. According to sources last week, not only did it increase fares after six years, it also announced that the fares will now be decided on an “indexing methodology”, a phrase that was buried deep in its own press release.
Additional Chief Secretary to the TN Government (Transport), PWC Davidar “We are borrowing heavily from how Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh fix their fares. The hikes will be minimal from 50p to Re and this won’t happen every year. Whenever there is a necessity, we will review our expenditure and fix the fares accordingly".
According to data from the Union Ministry of road
transport "Metro TC (Chennai) Limited carried the highest number of
passengers per bus per day during 2015-16 (1,270) followed by TNSTC
(Kumbakonam) Ltd (1031), while Mizoram ST carried the lowest number of
passengers per bus per day followed by Tripura RTC i.e. 11 passengers per bus
per day". Further in a city as congested as Chennai, the drivers performed
the best in the country with an average mileage of 4.4km per liter of
high-speed diesel.
