The Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) will resume full-fledged operations suspended since March 25 following the COVID-19-induced countrywide lockdown from Friday.
All unit officers of the transport undertaking across the State have been asked to take steps to ensure full operations from December 18 and it will take one week to normalise the schedules, Chairman and Managing Director Biju Prabhakar said.
However, the KSRTC’s Fast Passenger services will be restricted to two districts and Super Fast services to four districts for the time being. The restrictions that are already in place will be a hurdle for long-distance travellers as they will have to board two buses if they want to commute between six districts.
4,791 schedules
The KSRTC was operating 5,218 schedules during the pre-lockdown days and the plan is to operate 4,791 schedules, a top official of the Operations wing said.
The KSRTC is providing 25% discount in fares of the services operated by Super Fast, Super Deluxe, Super Express, multi-axle Scania and Volvo, and air-conditioned low-floor JNNURM buses on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Friday
The KSRTC has already commenced inter-State services to Mysuru, Bengaluru, Mangaluru, and Mookambika in Karnataka using multi-axle buses in the fleet. But, the request to the Tamil Nadu government to commence inter-State services had not received any response. “After writing two letters, they have informed us that they have no plans to operate inter-State services now and that they will let us know,” he said.
Special services from Dec. 21
To clear the rush during Christmas and New Year, the KSRTC has also decided to operate special inter-State services from Bengaluru to various places in the State from December 21 to January 4, 2021.
The special services will be to Kozhikode, Kannur, Payannur, Sulthan Bathery, Thrissur, Ernakulam, Thiruvananthapuram, and Kottayam using Super Express and Super Deluxe buses. There will be one special service from Chennai via Trichy, Madurai, and Nagercoil to Thiruvananthapuram.
