West Bengal Transport Corporation constituted

The integrated board of the three transport corporations has been named as the West Bengal Transport Corporation.  It may be recalled that an integrated board for Calcutta State Transport Corporation (CSTC), Calcutta Tramways Company (CTC) and West Bengal Surface Transport Corporation (WBSTC) was constituted to ensure better transport facility. The step was also taken to ensure that the loss incurred by the corporations could be reduced. The decision on integration of the three crucial transport corporations was taken on June 8.

It was learnt that the integrated board, with the new name, will also get its own logo and the transport department had approached Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to draw a logo for the West Bengal Transport Corporation.

Banerjee had drawn logos of several projects of the transport department earlier, including one that of the Gatidhara scheme. Rachpal Singh, the MLA from Tarakeswar, was made the chairman of the integrated board for CSTC, CTC and WBSTC. Entally MLA Swarnakamal Saha was appointed the vice-chairman of the board. Nayna Bandyapadhyay, MLA from Chowringhee Assembly constituency and Sujit Basu from Bidhannagar Assembly constituency were inducted as the two directors of the newly formed board.

A senior official of the state transport department said that the main reason behind setting up an integrated board for the three corporations – whose functions are mainly related to the city – was to bring all the three corporations under one umbrella.

The integration will help in depot and terminus sharing and the corporations would minimise incurring loss. Surveys had also revealed that there are many routes where both CSTC and WBSTC run buses. As a result, it used to lead to a heavy loss to all three corporations.

Moreover, the World Bank had also funded a project to rationalise routes as it was found that the ration between the buses and passengers were not proportionate.  Thus, route rationalisation was essential to help passengers get frequent and better bus service and to reduce losses.

In connection with the formation of the integrated board for all the three transport corporations, Banerjee had said earlier that the “purpose of bringing in the integrated board is to bring down the expenditure.  The state government needs to pay Rs 40,000 crore to clear debt. 

Thus, such a step has been taken to ensure that common people continue getting a better transport facility and at the same time the expenditure also comes down.”

At the same time, she had assured that employees of any of the three corporations need not worry as their job would not get affected in any way due to formation of the integrated board. 

If excess man power in any of the corporations is noticed, then the employees would be transferred to some other departments of the state government. It needs to be mentioned that on June 8 itself the boards of the North Bengal State Transport Corporation (NBSTC) and South Bengal State Transport Corporation (SBSTC) were also reconstituted. 

MLA Sourav Chakraborty was made chairman of the NBSTC board and Arghya Ray Pradhan has become its vice-chairman. 

On the other hand, Tamanash Ghosh was appointed chairman of the SBSTC board and Asit Majumder was made vice-chairman.