Transport minister Aryadan Muhammed has intervened and convened a meeting of works managers of Kerala State Road Transport Department (KSRTC) following the delay in rolling out new buses.
Around 650 chassis arrived last December at five regional workshops across the state. But more than half are yet to roll out owing to raw material shortage.
“The minister recently convened a meeting at which he directed the officials to take steps to complete body-building work by September.
It’s been decided to hire more manpower at the regional workshops and to go in for local purchase of steel,” Managing Director K.G. Mohanlal said.
Another plan is to directly handover to the workshops funds for purchasing raw materials.
“This will lessen the administrative procedure and speed up the work.
Though the management has directed the regional workshops to procure the steel locally, work was still being affected owing to non-availability of sanctioned funds,” a regional workshop official, who attended the meet, said.
A major share of the total chassis has been remaining idle for months at the five regional workshops at Thiruvananthapuram, Mavelikara, Aluva, Edapal and Kozhikode.
Till last year the raw-material supplier was Steel Industries Limited Kerala (SILK), the state-owned steel company.
However, it did not participate in last year’s tender, not happy with pending dues.
Though two or three private companies agreed to supply materials, they backed out later, resulting in shortage of steel.