The Hindu  13.10.2010

Government Orders issued on MTC bifurcation

Ajai Sreevatsan

Services under new arrangement from next week

CHENNAI: The Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) is being bifurcated into MTC (North) and MTC (South) and the services under the new arrangements will begin from next week.

While an announcement in this regard was made by Transport Minister K. N. Nehru in the Assembly on December 31, 2009, a Government Order on splitting the MTC and another on the names of the new entities were issued on Monday and Tuesday respectively. Speaking to The Hindu on Tuesday, Mr. Nehru said the split would ease the administrative burden.

“The operational limit of the MTC was extended to 50 km a couple of years ago. Many parts of Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram districts are also being covered by the MTC. Monitoring and keeping track of operational efficiency have become difficult,” he said.

Half of the 3,267 buses in the MTC's fleet would be transferred to the newly created MTC (North), to be headquartered at Anna Nagar depot. All student concession passes would be handled by MTC (South), which would function at the existing Pallavan House. Season tickets and travel-as-you-please tickets could be bought at any bus depot. The dividing line between the two transport districts would be Poonamallee High Road.

The bifurcation strategy, aimed at improving operational efficiency, had already been tried once and failed.

The Pallavan Transport Corporation, MTC's earlier name, was bifurcated in January 1994 to create Dr. Ambedkar Transport Corporation, with a view to improving administration. What ensued was turf war between the two transport districts, said MTC officials, who were part of the set-up then.

Revenue sharing became a problem and unhealthy competition between the two divisions resulted in revenue generating routes being served by too many buses while other routes were ignored. The merger of the two districts and creation of the MTC came into effect on January 10, 2001.

To avoid the same problems, measures such as permanent ‘Route Sharing Committee' to allocate inter-district routes, sharing revenue from season tickets on a pro-rata (based on fleet proportion) basis and both Corporations plying equal number of kilometres across districts have been suggested in the G.O.

Apart from Chennai, the State Transport Corporation (Madurai), which currently serves seven districts, had also been split.

Henceforth, State Transport Corporation (Madurai) would serve Madurai, Virudhunagar, Dindugul and Theni. The State Transport Corporation (Tirunelveli) would operate in Tirunelveli, Kanyakumari and Tuticorin.