K'taka wants Centre to restore capital contribution to STUs

Mysore, June 30 (UNI) Karnataka Transport Minister N Cheluvarayaswamy today urged the Association of State Road Transport Undertakings (STUs) to prevail upon the Union Government to restore the capital contribution to all the STUs in the country and reduce the excise duty on diesel and chassis.

Inaugurating the two-day 214th meeting of the Association's Standing Committee (Supplies and Contracts) here, he said such measures would improve the overall development of the country and greatly reduce operation costs of public transport. Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy had already spoken to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in this regard.

Mr Cheluvarayaswamy said the Centre, which had been making capital contribution to all STUs, had stopped it during 1994-95, making it difficult for the STUs to augment its rolling stocks and develop infrastructure to meet the increasing demand. Since then it had become inevitable for successive state governments to support the programmes of STUs by partly contributing for developing infrastructure and helping secure institutional finance to augment its fleet, he added.

He also informed that in a bid to find alternative fuels, the KSRTC and BMTC were conducting trails using pongemia oil and ethanol mix with diesel to reduce diesel consumption. The results of the trails had been encouraging, he added.

Talking about recruitments, the Minister said for the first time in the country, the Karnatkaa Corporation had introduced computerised track system for recruitment of drivers. All the four corporations had in all recruited about 4,000 drivers and drivers-cum-conductors through this system. This method was highly transparent and of assured standards.

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