PUNE On June 1, 1948, Maharashtra’s first state-run bus left Pune for Ahmednagar, 120 km away — this was the first journey undertaken by the Bombay State Road Transport Corporation, as the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) was then called. The bus had a seating capacity of 27 passengers, and was half full.
As the bus service enters its 75th year, the corporation, an autonomous body under the state transport ministry operates a fleet of 18,500 buses, and ferries nearly 60 lakh passengers daily on an average, across the state, forming a crucial mode of transportation between urban and rural Maharashtra.
Over the past seven decades, the buses, known among users as ‘lal pari’ due to its red exterior, has changed. A premium service operated by the MSRTC is no longer red; the Shivneri service is a fleet of Mercedez Benz and is now quite popular as it is also air-conditioned.
The first ST bus, according to retired MSRTC employees, was not made of iron as the current fleet is, nor was there any aluminium inside which is also currently used, to make the body or the outside structure of the bus. The first one in fact, had a wooden body and a roof made of cloth. Most buses till the 1970s were wooden Bedford-class, a type of vehicle known to be short or mini in size in silver and blue colour. Double decker buses also formed part of the fleet, but these were later pulled out.
Five years ago, when the public transport body completed 70 years, it digitized its archive, comprising old pictures of various buses in its fleet and called it Vahan Nama.
Vasant Kate, who was the conductor on the first bus that travelled in 1948, said that the roads were worse and the passengers fewer, but the service was quite popular. In a 2007 interview to Marathi daily, Prabhat; Kate, then 88, said that he was employed as he knew some English and the transport body wanted him to be deployed on Pune -Mahabaleshwar route where English-speaking passengers travelled frequently.
“The ST buses are the lifeline of the state transportation and for the poor people to travel in the remote parts of the state. We will be trying to bring back the earlier glory and better services of the MSRTC for which sufficient funds will be provided for its upgradation and smooth functioning,” state transport minister Anil Parab said during the inauguration of the electric bus service at MSRTC head office in Pune on Wednesday.
According to Parab, the MSRTC is slowly coming back on track. “We are now focusing on reducing the losses and to generate more revenue to stabilize the organisation financially,” Parab said.
In seven and half decade, the MSRTC having offered its services to millions of passengers from across Maharashtra is struggling to survive amid the serious financial crisis and retain footfall. A six-month strike by employees that began last October and ended in April led to losses of more than ₹3,200 crore. The Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown, also caused losses of ₹4,000 crore, state officials said. According to the MSRTC workers state union, around 125 workers died by suicide due to Covid-induced financial crises.
One of the main demands of the striking employees was that the MSRTC be merged with the state government, so that the loss-making body’s reverses would be absorbed by the state, and the employees would gain job security. The government hiked the salaries, but refused to accept the merger.
“During the pandemic, the MSRTC had launched special cargo services to give a financial boost to the organization. Despite several measures, the situation has not augured well for the corporation. Despite large fleet of buses, trust of passengers and as many as 246 depots — some of them located at premium places — worth crores, the ST service has lost its way for the past few years only due to mismanagement and apathy shown by successive governments,” said Mahesh Sarnaik, secretary of state MSRTC bus passenger’s forum.
“We are happy that our MSRTC is going into its 75th year and it is the only state transport body in the country which is tirelessly working round the clock to provide bus service to lakhs of passengers daily. But at the same time along with the passing years it is also necessary to upgrade and connect to the new techniques and technology for running the operations. There are several loopholes and issues which need to be addressed on a priority basis, the depot development plan which was proposed around 20 years back didn’t got implemented properly or none of the state governments took it seriously. On other hand the liabilities of the organization kept on increasing, new ways of income like the newly started cargo services should have begun far before,” said Satish Mistry, a civic activist and transport expert.