Advisor to Governor, K Skandan today chaired the 80th meeting of Board of Directors (BoDs) of Jammu and Kashmir State Road Transport Corporation (JKSRTC) at Civil Secretariat here.Financial Commissioner Finance, AK Mehta, Principal Secretary Transport, Asgar Hassan Samoon, Principal Secretary Housing and Urban Development, Dheeraj Gupta, MD JKSRTC, Owais Ahmad and other concerned officers attended the meeting.Skandan, who is in-charge of the Transport Department emphasised the need for evolving an effective mechanism and innovations to improve the efficiency and making the corporation a profit-worthy public utility. He called upon the management to adopt a model which would be viable both in terms of revenue generation and efficient public transport system.Suggesting several measures to improve the health of the Corporation, the Advisor asked the officials to take appropriate measure to strengthen the transport network with various States of the country, especially with hungry routes with competitive efforts to ensure earning more revenue. The Advisor said and added that “in this era of competitiveness in every sector, we have to make serious efforts to attract passengers to avail services of this public sector transport with added facilities and comfort”.
Regarding the electric buses and setting up fuel-charging stations, the meeting was informed that specifications and details of 20 routes, each in Srinagar and Jammu were submitted to administrative department for further necessary action. The MD JKSRTC presented his agenda before the Board of Directors for consideration and subsequent approval for the same.It was given out that for development of required infrastructure, release of central share and state share has been taken up with DHI, GOI and administrative department respectively. Pitching for revamping of the corporation, the board was informed that 306 buses and 204 trucks would be replaced within the span of two years, for which a proposal has been submitted with revised estimates.Giving out the performance of the Corporation for the year 2017-18 and 2018-19, the meeting was informed that the Corporation has earned revenue to the tune of Rs 96.79 Cr during the year 2018-19 which comprises Rs 79.70 Cr Operational Revenue and Rs. 17.09 Cr Non-Operational.During his power point presentation, MD Corporation informed that the balance sheet of SRTC has been completed for the year 2018-19 and the annual accounts are prepared up-to 2018-19.