Tripura Road Transport Corporation (A Government of Tripura Undertaking) has been established in the year 1969 under the Road Transport Corporation (RTC) Act, 1950. The main objective of this Corporation is to provided / render an efficient, economical and well-coordinated transport facility to the people of Tripura within the State.
The above para is published in the welcome
page of TRTC website. This is
accompanied by a Mission & Vision page on the same website which talks about providing
“world class bus service”, “innovation”, “sustainability”, “environmental
consciousness”, “continuous learning” and other similar heavy words.
However, one fact that every person in Tripura will
agree to, is that the TRTC is a perennial loss-making institution which has
been of no substantial use to the people of Tripura. Rather it has contributed
to the degradation of the environment by increasing the carbon footprints of
Government of Tripura. A look at the website makes it clear that the TRTC runs
only diesel-powered buses. Not a single electric or even CNG bus comprises its
fleet of 23 buses.
It seems that alternative fuel has never been a
priority of TRTC or even the Tripura Government. ONGC has a big establishment in Tripura with
multiple gas fields and exploration units. CNG has not been pushed beyond the
state capital of Agartala in successive state budgets even though Tripura has
been recognized as the largest producer of Natural Gas by the union minister Dharmendra
Pradhan himself.
In a time when Carbon credits are getting more
relevant every year, the TRTC provides a lot of potential to revamp its image
and functionality and become an asset of importance to the Government. This can
be done by replacing the whole fleet with sustainable fuel powered passenger
vehicles, preferably electric vehicles (EV). Electric buses have been
functional in big cities like Delhi and Mumbai for a few years now.
TRTC has a lot of land area under its jurisdiction,
which being government land can be monetized very easily. There is a TRTC bus
depot in every sub-division of Tripura. This area may be developed on similar
lines of “Railway stations as City Centers” initiative by the Ministry of Railways. All the bus
depots may be turned into electric vehicle (EV) charging stations which can be
used by the TRTC fleet as well as public by paying suitable rent / fees for
charging.
This way, the main challenge of the organization i.e.
fuel cost will be reduced drastically while earning carbon credits for itself.
Further, the monetized charging stations will generate extra revenue. With that
the fleet can be doubled and can be run in sync with the railways providing
meaningful services to the people of Tripura while setting an example of
transformation through adoption of new technology.
(This post was first published on tripurainfo.com)