According to figures procured from the state Transport Department, the number of registration of new buses started coming down in the financial year 2015-16 followed by a steady decline since.

The registrations were 409 (2015-16), 168 (2016-17), 285 (2017-18) and 231 (2018-19), 128 (2019-20), 81 (2020-21), 67 (2021-22), 50 (2021-22) and 46 (till December 25, 2023).

The major decline in the registrations took place during the pandemic period, a senior Transport Department official said. “We saw a reluctance on the part of the private bus operators to purchase new vehicles. But then we witnessed an increase in the number of commercial carriages like taxis and auto-rickshaws.”

The operators are of the opinion that bus service is no longer a lucrative business as bus fares have not been increased in the state for 10 years now even as the prices of diesel and spare parts as well as the cost of insurance and road tax kept every passing year.

“It is difficult to make a profit by plying a bus in Kolkata. If a person is not able to make a profit why should they be interested in this?” said a bus operator.

Many bus operators have already shifted to other businesses, it is learnt.

Tapan Banerjee, general secretary of the Joint Council of Bus Syndicates, a bus operators’ association said, “After 2014-15, diesel prices started increasing and touched Rs 100 eventually. It almost doubled during this time. The prices of spare parts of buses also went up. The state government should understand that buses will not run on water. If bus fares do not increase, how will we make a profit? In the last 10 years, the state government did not allow us to increase the fares. This sector is nearly ruined in Bengal.”

He added, “After the Supreme Court order in 2009, all buses aged more than 15 years were phased out. More than 4,000 buses will be scrapped the next year as they will complete 15 years. If bus fares are not increased, these buses will not be replaced with new ones. As a result, the commuters will bear the brunt.”

Though state Transport Minister Snehashish Chakraborty acknowledged the problem, he declined to comment on the bus fare issue. “Before Covid-19, the number of buses in Kolkata was increasing but it went down thereafter. We are trying to meet the shortfall by buying new buses. But this scale of requirement can not be met by the government. Therefore, we are trying to ply buses in the city in public-private partnership (PPP) mode,” he said.