The Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) is in an unenviable situation – saddled by debt, staring at losses and facing a nation-high bus-to-employee ratio of 7.2 and a fuel-efficiency standard that would make a McLaren gush.

In a recent op-ed in the Mathrubhumi, a former Chairman of the Tamil Nadu Transport Corporation and Principal Secretary in the Transport Ministry, P C Cyriac, argued for the KSRTC to be restructured on the basis of the model employed for the Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL), the moderately successful public-private partnership (PPP) model adopted for the Cochin Airport.

While he rightly identified the issues that drag the KSRTC down (bus-to-employee ratio, fuel efficiency and so on), his suggestions – especially on adopting the PPP model of CIAL – are impractical. Cyriac instead suggests getting private investors on board as minority stakeholders. However, no investor would deem investing in a company that posted losses of more than Rs 600 crore last year a welcome proposition. Would you, as an investor, put your hard-earned money in a corporation whose administration is is such that two years ago, 3,000 employees received double their salary and 3,000 received none at all in a mix-up? The KSRTC has still not computerised its operations or devised a time-management system. Would you invest any money in such a company?

Cyriac, however, does rightly point out the lack of professional expertise inside the corporation. But his suggestion of appointing “qualified IAS officers” might not be the best advice; qualified management professionals should be preferred over paper-pushing bureaucrats.

Even aside from the question of investor reception, the suggestion of a PPP model would invite contempt and vigorous opposition from the left-wing intellectuals that populate Kerala. Whether the government will expend such political capital is doubtful, considering it already lacks the political will to push through the current set of suggestions.

The Susheel Khanna report, which has the standard set of recommendations for a public transport corporation, recommends the trilateral splitting of the corporation into North, Central and South divisions based out of Kozhikode, Ernakulam and Thiruvananthapuram along the lines of the Tamil Nadu Road Transport Corporation. While this and other suggestions, such as induction of new buses and cutting of unprofitable routes, are practical, the most essential requirement – reducing employees in the corporation and restructuring to improve efficiency and reduce the financial liability of the corporation – are impractical due to political considerations.

The trade unions Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and Indian National Trade Union Congress will be in opposition to any sort of restructuring. And considering the political links that exist between the CITU and the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist), the government will not want to displease its allied organisation, especially with CPI (M) coming out in direct opposition to the elder partner. There’s also the continuing blowback that the party is facing from Gita Gopinath’s appointment as economic adviser to the Chief Minister, which has been suggested by some as an indicator that Pinarayi Vijayan will pursue the much -despised “neo-liberal” policies. There has been no indication, though, that he supports any notion of a free market or “neo-liberal” policies.

This issue, along with the political fracas that has erupted over the suicide of an engineering student, Jishnu, and the subsequent divergence in positions within the ruling Left Democratic Front, means that a political consensus will be hard to come by.

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