BMTC, corruption and ticket-less rides

BMTC also says that it issues about 2 lakh daily and 2.36 lakh monthly passes.   About 10% of the passengers would not need to buy tickets and therefore only about 34 lakh tickets would get sold or about

Latest number is 293 lakhs daily from their website.  or about Rs.35 lakhs more/day than your number or Rs.10 crores a month.  You might want to relook at your numbers in this light.  I don;t know how much a daily pass or monthly pass costs.

Also the routes you have are all red board routes where this problem is probably higher.  Black board routes probably are a bit better. 

Only way to get rid of this problem is to have stored value cards.  When you enter the bus you tap and the machine removes entire remaining journey fare.  Puts the onus of tapping on to the passenger when exiting the bus.  No cash transactions is the only foolproof way.  Then hefty fines for those who still cheat. 

Srivathsa

P.S. For some reason the new posts don't seem to appear on the home page.

I work in ITPL and use the BMTC shuttle buses (buses contracted to ITPL). Speaking with the drivers in Kannada and enquiring about their problems is all that needs to get friendly with them. Generally most of them are well cultured and talk respectfully, may be it is because of the job pressure that sometimes they are rude when they interact with the commuters. 

This is what i was told by them about the corruption in the system.

Generally the bus routes in the city are categorized as 
1. profitable routes  (where commuter density is high)
2. non-profitable routes 

The depot manager is responsible for allocating the routes to the drivers and conductors. For a driver conductor pair to get a profitable route, he should give a cut to the depot manager (this cut depends on the route - the base price is around Rs100per day). 

On an average, on each route they make anywhere between Rs800 to Rs1000 per day (weekly average). The money is equally split between the driver and conductor after the depot manager's share is taken out.On any average day each bus makes a minimum of Rs.10000 (revenue loss around 8-10%). 

On non-profitable routes the cut to the depot manager is less, but the conductors and drivers are supposed to part some base price - failing which they will be put on punishment routes!! (thats the lingo that they use). The punishment routes are the ones like the ITPL shuttle routes and other IT company shuttle buses - here there are no cash transactions involved because of the pass system.

Even the Volvo routes are considered punishment routes to a certain extent - because on most Volvo routes the no. of commuters are still less and also the scope to make money is limited.

There are few other ways through which they milk the system -
- re-issuing old tickets (this practise has been curbed to a certain extent with the ticket printer machines)
- re-issuing of used day passes. If u didnt know there is day pass buy-back scheme that some conductors offer. The buy back rate depends on what time of the day you are giving back the pass to the conductor - the conductors then sell them back to other commuters at the list price. Many a times i have been asked by conductors casually if i had the day pass that they could buy.

And yes there is one more way - many a times conductors do not give back the change immediately to the commuters, instead they write a note at the back of the ticket and ask the commuter to collect it latter - the commuters often forget to collect back the money or the peak hour rush ensures that at commuters' stop, they cant reach the conductor.

Most of the drivers that i interacted with, were on these routes (ITPL shuttle service routes) as they couldnt pay the depot managers - either they didnt have the guts to do all this or they just wanted to be honest. No wonder all these guys are very friendly when they interact with the ITPL employees. 

Good work on the stats.

It is a systemic rot. It has become a practice and will continue like the broken window syndrome, it needs to be stopped. I agree with SY who said something to the effect - It is stupid to think we will solve problems by doing the same things the same way. 

privatization itself may not be an exciting solution

I dont know if the jusco model or a variant of it is exciting enough, but it is worth a shot. If this hasnt gone anywhere since 1964 and we still dont want to try something else, the window is just going to get more broken.

My experience is it is common in both public and private transports

We are worried now because it is the tax payers money. Who is being swindled here? BMTC as an organization is. If there was a deal where you passed on the risks of pilferage to the 3rd party he has every reason to ensure it doesnt happen and even if it does, he will be bearing the brunt of it, not the tax payer. There are many other things you can solve in the contract. Let us understand the culture of the organization, what are the pulls and pressures of the unions. We underrestimate our capacity to swindle our government.

While private participation is not the ONLY solution, let us not thrash this everytime just because we dont know how to reap the benefits.

The possible solution to stop this pilferage is for an effective checks and definite action against culprits

This has been going on for as long as I can remember travelling in BTS buses. I have paid 25ps to save a 75ps ticket in the 70's. PSA has mentioned this too, checking since 1964. In 2009 this still exists. Which other developed country has this? Why not?

Please dont get me wrong. I am willing to see if your punishment solution or any other can stop pilferage without it coming back to haunt us later. I appreciate the solution and its worth a shot and then we can go back to the rest of the issues one by one - redundant routes, bad planning, improper maintenance, inadequate schedule information in bus stops, bad timliness, scamming in tyre deals, drivers not stopping in stops, not following rules, taking diversions....

 PS: Sorry SB had to go back to the larger picture.

I feel the fundamental problem is with the leadership itself..leadership at all levels!

0.1% comission or 10% comission or bribe or whatever we call it..its a MISTAKE!

Theres no place to entertain even a small percentage of bribe or commission..

In SB's test..it was OK to pass off bribing in a normal bus but not in a Volvo..though this was a test..its more or less a norm that ppl use to get away!

In Hosur TN, they follow a novel way of fine for ticket less travel..if a person is caught ticket less..hes fined with tearing 10 tickets on the spot for him and the cunductor looses a days sallary!

So everyone insists on buying tickets and cunductor more than obliges by sticking a tkt in every ones hands even before they pay!

And the checks happen always in a moving bus infront of other passengers and not at end points..which gives no room for the inspectors to taste the honey!

We can do this too..unless our 'leadership' decides otherwise like they do with LOKAYUKTA!

 more than 90% of people are honest and want to lead honest lives

It may be so but nothing stops greed. Even politicians who are paid more than conductors are not satisfied with the crores, they go for the hundreds of thousands of crores. For all the people who lokayukta traps, Its not about having money, they probably have sites enough for generations. It is the thrill of extracting for personal gains using the official powers. Indian black money is the highest in the world almost as big as our GDP. No other country hordes so much in black. It must be something in the water. 

It boils down, I will be corrupt when I know I can get away with it.   Unions will not let the culprits lose their jobs.  If that were to happen a few times, all this would stop.

If Gandhi was asked today what he thought of Indian morality he would say "It would be a  very good idea"

When the Delhi HC repealed Sec 377 and decriminalized gay sex between consenting adults, there was a hue and cry on what this would do to Indian morals.  What morals?  We must be the most morally corrupt nation on this earth.  We will kill small girl babies, burn brides, divert money meant for children's mid-day meal schemes and still take the moral high ground on all matters and call our 5000 year history to our rescue each time :)  Laughable if it were not so tragic.

Srivathsa

SB, your take 

• Can we get Lokayukta or CAG to probe this "leak" from the angle that this "might" be a racket where money is travelig up?

• Can we get BMTC to at least admit the magnitude of the problem?

CAG has pointed out -

- 'leakage on account of pilferage by conductors',

- 'false entries in trip sheets of conductors by Traffic Inspectors'

- 'failure of line checking squads in conducting surprise route checks'

-  'duplicate tickets under circulation'

- 'absence of effective internal audit systems at various levels'

and a host of other systemic failures a number of times in his Audit Reports through Draft Paragraphs, Review Reports and Efficiency cum Performance Audits (ECPA).

- If these well documented and evidenced Audit Reports are taken seriously by the Legislatures and Parliament (on Central Audit Reports),  many heads should roll ..but

- the Central/State Public Accounts Committees to whom these Audit Reports are remitted for examination and give their recommendations on action to be taken by the Government on people involved does not seem to be serious about their sacred duties.

- In the name of examination of the Audit Reports, the entire team of PAC travels as and when and where they want, have a nice trip to various corners of the country, get TA/DA, talk with the officials for a few hours and get back rejuvenated.

- Even if Lok Ayukta takes these Audit Reports seriously, examines them threadbare and initiates action based on these audit points, enough fear can be inculcated in the minds of the civil servants and employees.

Reg. point on  'travelling up', conductors are small fish but there are sharks at higher levels.  See my earlier post pl.

- Vasanth Mysoremath

This is an option. But to role it out, there will be capital costs. Which may mean recovering the money from somewhere, which may mean increasing cost of bus tickets (when we know it costs same or less to use a 2 wheeler), hence we lose people to non-sustainable modes of transport. Then there is a question of why do we need conductors on buses and pay dead salaries, if this burden is not on us, capital costs of such a system will be recovered in no time, in fact tickets can get cheaper. But then what happens with the conductors - lose jobs? I prefer they were re-trained to drive buses, do customer survey, man helplines and so on.

The other problem is we never try and keep it simple - again, look at London, whether you travel half a mile or 10, the cost of ticket is same. One only need understand the maths behind averages to work out a balanced cost of this kind that suits all, including the service provider. This is remarkably helpful as the smart cards and readers and the software costs will be much cheaper - its a single transaction, rather than needing an algorithm that works out different stages of travel for different types of buses........why complicate our lives, I never have understood it.

ASJ

 But then what happens with the conductors

He can continue to do his job without a cash bag hanging around his neck. Instead it will be a handheld ticket reader or a spot ticket vending machine which can take credit cards maybe? A slight twist in the implementation is required for indian volumes, instead of burdening the driver with validating the customer tickets which may lead to a drop in the turnaround time at bus stops.

The conductor also can make himself more useful around the bus and the bus stops like assisting passengers, organizing the crowd and traffic at stops etc. I havent used the airport buses, but I believe already the conductor helps out with the luggage, disabled passengers etc. 

Saw PS2 only now.  Was wondering why SB was not too happy with the solution bit.

SB - your 50 capacity is way too low.  If you look at the average BMTC bus it has seating alone of 40 (10 rows of 4 abreast) and can easily take 40 standing.  

Approaching it another way. 

Let us assume an average static capacity utilization of 80% and a dynamic CU (considering people getting on and off) of 100%.  One trip should carry 75-80 people at least (I wish you had taken 138 in the 80s and 90s!) during peak hour and 50 people during non peak hour.   Let's say average of 60

Let's say a daily pass user makes average 3 trips a day (else you would not buy one) and a monthly pass user makes 2.5 trips a day.

If they are doing 75000 trips then ticket sales should be equal to

75000*60 - 200,000*3 - 236000*2.5 = 3,300,000.

Daily passes cost Rs.20 and monthly passes about 400. 

Doing all the maths they earn Rs.21 crores a month from pass sales or about 70 lakhs a day.  Total daily revenue is 295 lakhs.  Ticket revenue is Rs.225000 lakhs or about Rs.6.80 / ticket. 

What is the minimum fare on BMTC - tried checking but site says route information is under construction.  I would think that Rs.6.8 won't get you too far.  As you say only 8-10 km.  If the average trip length is 16 km then 35% of each trip is unfunded - 25% points of that is because only 75% CU (used in the assumption) and the balance???

So somwhere between 10-12% of people are not paying BMTC on each trip.  About the same conclusion.

Srivathsa

As I said, it is work ethos. There are random ticket checkers, and I am sure Bangalore has them, but perhaps their number is inadequate?

It takes 2 to tango - in Mumbai may be the avergae passenger is not keen on taking risk of small saving through ticketless travel or may be the passengers are keen but conductors will not play ball.

Sour grapes exsist, London has them, but they have a goal of 1% passengers being randomly checked every day (1% of 7 million passenger trips).

Others here can do the calculations for 3.8m passenger trips (not passengers as BMTC puts it) - that is 1.4 m people out of 7 in B'lore, less if proportion travel on 2 buses (4 trips per person per day for round trips back home) - to find out how many staff need deploying in B'lore for this goal. This is vital as its a big source of revenue, fines in London are about 15 times cost of ticket. 

ASJ

  Some time back I saw two beautiful brand new “Meru” Taxis parked in front of my house. Curious I started talking to the driver.

Meru is a Bombay (?) company. It has a sophisticated communication link on board the taxis. Any call to the company results in passing the customer to the nearest Meru taxi. The Driver is to give a fixed amount to the company at the end of the day. The drivers earning is whatever is over and above the amount to be given to the company. The drivers are happy as their earnings are better than what they hoped to earn otherwise.

The merus are not exclusively operating to BIAL alone. They can be hired by one and all for any destination. Where is scope for corruption in this model? Good incentive to the driver and an assured return on investment..

Why are we researching on poor BMTC conductors tango with gullible public? What is the Praja ideating about?

SB,

Sorry to bring somemore ideological submissions, but this time with some facts.  Be it BMTC, or any other Private run corporation, Solution lies in slew of measures including enforcement, technology, change in work culture etc that makes corporations profitable and run on sound economics bereft of any unethical practices at all levels.

Very interesting to  note that an American author Steve Hamm writes in his book 'Bangalore Tiger' about Azim Premji setting a high moral principle that his company WIPRO would not pay any bribes. This is the stated policy with all the major companies in US. Every year I have to undergo a Ethics training which specifically talks about bribes in dealing with companies in US and elsewhere.

Murali SIr,

The systemic rot is also about our attitude towards nation's assets. What is hram in learning the BEST model that doesn't promote ticketless travel? It is the same human kind that lives in Mumbai also. They are as good as we Bangaloreans are? Also they are as bad as we are. Corruption in Public or private sector should be matter of great concern. We need to come out of this attitude that, if I am not affected I don't need to bother? If that is the case why is Satyam's financial bungling occupied news headlines? Why should even govt step in and save the company. Bottom line, even private enterprise are nation's assets and it must be run on fair and sound economics.

Just bringing in some private players to replace BMTC would not solve all problems. Private participation should be brought in to a plan. You have quoted telecom's private sector  being the example. But we must also know the whole truth about that assertion. Telecom sector's success didn't came just because of opening up to private players. Without mentioning Sam Pitroda and C-DOT, telecom's success story is incomplete.

SB,

a. Expecting this to go the way of corporate meetings (agenda, stick to the core issue) is unrealistic.  You are setting yourself up for disappointment.  It takes all sorts to make up the world :)

b. How many of us use buses regularly enough to post fact based observations? 

My two cents.

Srivathsa

SB, u r right.  what we need is solution to a problem;

if somebody has a solution that can remotely solve or in a micro way touch the core issue, then flaunt it.

Otherwise, going through the philosophy, history, geography, algebra, trigonometry, space explorations by ETs will be a problem and control+alt+del.

Get back to original post:  Yes there is pilferage by the conductor because benchmarks for such pilferages have been set by all those in authority, then how to bell the cat? 

Instead of going on stating the obvious and proving that we are the part of the problem, let us try to be the part of the solution. 

Next time, SB, even for sting op, do not tip the conductor and get away without being caught.  If you were caught and if you explained to them that you are trying to expose the corrupt ways, they will not garland but will levy the necy fine and put you to gallows.

This is the best way -  let it begin from each one of us.  If we do not insist on a receipt for having bought 100 gms of mustard seed also amounts to encouraging corruption by the shop keeper. So, let us demand and get a receipt.  It all begins at home.

- Vasanth Mysoremath

SB, Thanks for bring the focus back on the crux of the matter. To me this thread is about how to better the system ...

... BEST or London or where ever, there are bound to be sour grapes. Considering the amount of corruption the average BEST passenger mat be exposed or participating in, the BEST manages fairly high standards on this one. BEST already is expanding its useage of smart cards, they now have one which can be used on central railway as well and soon WR will become compliant with this.

Yet, to minimise loss, random ticket checking is required (BEST also uses plain clothes checkers). If we try and hypothetically agree that like London, Indian cities target 1% of all bus users, how many TCs do we need. If one checks 2-4 tickets a miinute but needs to spend 30 minutes on average getting the culprits to pay fine and do paperwork relating to it - how many passengers will one TC manage to screen per day per shift, how many are needed in BMTC to get there?

ASJ

[Note: comment moderated]

 What I have seen is, whenever buses are in the outskirts of the city, for smaller distances, fares are on the higher side. Conductors utilize this to cash in.

Minimum fare stages should be increased, minimum fares should be kept low and a chart should also be published in the buses.

Even in Vayu Vajras, we can find such cases. Very rare in the case of Vajras, may be conductor has got more share by selling more tickets than taking money directly from passengers. If so, similar procedure needs to be adopted in ordinary buses. 

Passes are the best way to prevent this. 

Not just that, Gurpreet Singh, who boarded the Volvo bus from Brookefields, refused to get off without a ticket. The result: He got into a verbal altercaation with the conductor, but had to pay double the fare.

- - - "When I asked him (conductor) why is he cheating us and isn't the salary given by BMTC enough, he lost his cool and challenged me to complain against him to the BMTC. When I tried to take a picture of him, he posed for it with a salute as if he has won a medal in corruption," he added.

- - - In response to the complaint, BMTC said necessary direction has been issued to the department concerned to conduct surprise checks and act against the erring staff.

For the full text of the report in the ToI, click here.  

This blog was started in July, 09. In the over 7 years since then, the difference is that the conductors have become as bold, in going about their loot, as to openly challenge passengers to take their pictures and lodge complaints.

Like I had stated in my post of 11th July (same year, scroll above to check), the only answer is effective competition - more on the subject can be read here. Strangely, in the mean-time, some people are beginning to think that it's blasphemous to demand that, though, fortunately, the Centre appears to be doing every thing in its capacity to facilitate that, all of which can be seen in the post dated 5th March, 16, and the ones before it, in the above linked blog.