Festival, damp weather take toll on BMTC revenue

The Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC), which earns around Rs four crore a day, has posted losses of Rs two crore in just over two days due to Deepavali and rainy weather.

BMTC Chief Traffic Manager (Traffic) B C Renukeshwar told Deccan Herald on Wednesday that the percentage of people travelling by BMTC buses had dropped due to the festival.
“The number of people travelling by BMTC over the last couple of days has come down by around 25 to 30 per cent. Usually, 52 lakh people travel by our buses every day. This means, around 12 to 14 lakh people are not travelling during the festival season. So, revenue takes a beating.”

The BMTC, which runs 6,235 schedules on an average daily, has cut down schedules by 25 per cent during the festival season. The losses could be higher considering that the entire week is part of the holiday season. Bengalureans have taken off not just on the two holidays, Tuesday and Thursday, but for the entire week due to the festival.

Hundreds of people have gone to their native places and are out of Bengaluru for six to seven days. Children are not going to school because of the two holidays, which has cut down BMTC operations to schools.

A middle-class family said their children had not gone to school due to the holidays and therefore, there was no need to use BMTC services. “Tuesday and Thursday are holidays, the main reason why we are at home. Deepavali is another reason to stay at home. We travel usually by BMTC, but since we are not going out, we did not travel by the public service,” said Satyamurthy N, a resident of Jayanagar.

Sapna T of Vijayanagar said she had not gone out for shopping on Tuesday.

“The weather was damp, wet and cold. How do you expect people to do shopping in such weather? Why would people go out? Staying warm within your four walls was a better option.”

The rain and depressing weather has been a major reason for people to stay indoors.

Typically, on festival days, you see plenty of shoppers, but that wasn’t the case on Tuesday as it drizzled the entire day. Shopping areas like Majestic, KG Road, Avenue Road, MG Road, Brigade Road, Commercial Street and Jayanagar did not see hundreds of shoppers nor did malls. While the festival holidays were being anticipated with great expectations, no one thought Bengaluru’s weather would be sharply cold and wet as it has been since Sunday and disrupt the festive mood.