Bengaluru: In what may be heavy on the pocket of bus commuters, the proposal to hike bus fare by 15% by all the four Road Transport Corporations (RTCs) including KSRTC of the State has been approved by the State Cabinet on Thursday. The revised fare will come into effect from Jan. 5.

The Cabinet approved the recommendations made by Chief Secretary (CS) headed High-Level Committee, that included the hike in bus fare, development works and basic infrastructural facilities for passengers.

The Transport Corporations were financially overburdened with the increase in diesel price, automobile spare parts, labour wages and the purchase of new buses. Collectively, the Road Transport Corporations were incurring a loss of Rs. 3,650 crore per annum, that can be reduced at least by 50 percent with the revenue generated by the hike in bus fare. However, the decision whether to hike the fare charged in city or rural routes will be taken by the respective Corporations.

In the coming days, RTCs shall be giving more impetus towards implementing the recommendations of the Committee in toto to augment its resources and to purchase Electric buses or EVs.

After the implementation of Shakti Scheme, the daily passenger density has gone up from 80 lakh to 1.05 crore, with highest of 26 lakh women passengers alone. The increase in passengers and paucity of number of buses had turned into a bigger challenge to deal with, that will be addressed by purchasing additional buses, as recommended by the Committee.