Poor response in Pune prompts PMPML to try and explore new revenue models
Pre-Covid daily ridership of the city’s public service, by its own published data, was an average of 25 lakh daily commuter with a daily average income of Rs 1.5 crore
Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited is embarking on an innovative “revenue generation plan”, necessitated by a huge loss of revenue suffered due to Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns stemming thereof.
PMPML operations resumed on September 3 and chairman and managing director, Rajendra Jagtap, told HT on September 12 that the current daily passenger count is at one lakh with daily revenue at Rs18 lakh now.
Pre-Covid daily ridership of the city’s public service, by its own published data, was an average of 25 lakh daily commuter with a daily average income of Rs 1.5 crore.
“We are looking at the Covid pandemic like a blessing in disguise. We are working on several ideas to increase revenue. These include route rationalisation, fare optimisation, new areas and avenues for deployment of buses, and specialised new services. Also, we want to improvise services which we have been negligent about; like the Pune airport bus service, or services to the Hinjewadi IT hub and weekend services for tourism,” said Jagtap.
“Along with that, we are also working on depot development, which was one of the major points at the last meeting of the board of directors. If we look at our fare revenue, it is about 90 per cent of our total revenue earnings. When we compared it with other public bus services, like the Bengaluru Municipal Transportation, or BEST, they have other areas of revenue income. Their assets and properties give them lot of rental as well. We have 18 depots in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad and 10 other areas which we will think about utilising as transit hubs, or for commercial activities which serve our purpose,” he added.
Jagtap was reluctant to put a timeframe on any of these ideas coming to fruition, but insisted that the plans were imminent.