Mumbai: Shiv Sena’s (UBT) Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Legislative Council, Ambadas Danve, on Monday said that the CM Devendra Fadnavis-appointed committee, led by additional chief secretary (Transport) Sanjay Sethi, recommended scrapping the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation‘s (MSRTC) contract to hire buses on rent and called for a fresh tender. Danve said that the committee also recommended that MSRTC officials and consulting agencies be probed. The opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alleged that the scheme amounts to a Rs 2,800 crore scam. Last week, CM Devendra Fadnavis put the MSRTC’s decision on hold.
Danve, who took up the issue in the winter session of the state legislature in Nagpur, said that the buses on rent scheme was nothing but a Rs 2000 crore scam. “The enquiry committee recommended that the contract be cancelled. But the govt must make the enquiry report public. Mere scrapping of the contract is not enough. This scam was a result of an MSRTC officials-contractors-consultants nexus. So stringent action must be taken against all of them. I will take up the issue in the budget session of the state legislature again. I demand that the committee report be made public,” Danve said.
“MSRTC gave a letter of intent (LoI) to three companies for renting buses in December 2024. The plan was to rent 1,310 buses for 10 years. The cost of renting was Rs 34.70 to Rs 35.10 per km, but this was excluding the cost of fuel. However, in 2022, MSRTC rented buses at Rs 44 per km, including fuel cost. There is an average fuel cost of around Rs 22 per km. So the actual bus renting cost will be over Rs 56 per km, which is around Rs 12 to Rs 13 per km more,” said officials during the presentation. The MSRTC is hiring 1,310 buses. Of these, 450 buses are for Mumbai-Pune, 430 buses for Nashik-Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, and 430 buses for Nagpur-Amravati. City Life Line Travels, Travel Time Mobility India, and Antony Road Transport Solutions offered to supply the buses.
NCP (SP) MLA Rohit Pawar said that taking advantage of the political instability and political compromises in the recent past, contractors and officials colluded to form a big lobby and bag contracts at exorbitant prices. “The MSRTC scam is just one of the scams…thousands of crores of brokerage was siphoned in every department of the state,” Rohit alleged. The transport department was headed by then CM Eknath Shinde in the previous Mahayuti govt. Sena MLA Bharat Gogawale was appointed MSRTC Chairman in September last year.
