Provisions from Treasury to maintain SLTB

The Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB) which is a public enterprise has to carry out its business activities by managing physical and human resources of the institution with maximum efficiency, the Finance Ministry said in a statement yesterday.

As subsidies are made to the SLTB by calculating total cost incurred for social welfare activities such as, running busses on rural roads where economic benefits cannot be gained and issuing season tickets to school children and university students at concessionary rates as per the Government policy, SLTB would not bear any loss by keeping up such welfare activities, it noted.

“The Government had taken measures to increase minimum monthly salaries of SLTB employees from Rs. 8,430 up to Rs. 11,730 with effect from March 2012 taking the salary increase of other government employees into account. Action has also been taken by the Treasury to grant the total cost to be incurred by the SLTB for initial salary increase and other allowances with effect from the month of March.”

The release went onto say that the Treasury released Rs. 371 million to the SLTB so as to utilise the said provision to make the payment of salaries of the employees for the month of May 2012. The responsibility of the management of SLTB is to utilise the said provision with maximum efficiency.

Subsidy given to the SLTB by the Government has been increased with effect from March 2012 having considered the cost increased owing to the revision of bus fares to facilitate business activities of the SLTB in order to compete with private sector positively. As such, the Treasury has released a sum of Rs. 510 million to the SLTB for the month of June.

Furthermore funds are allocated by the Treasury to the SLTB to meet the capital expenditure, viz, purchase of buses and spare parts in addition to reimbursement of revenue loss borne by the SLTB on account of engaging in welfare activities. Accordingly, a provision of Rs. 1,400 million has been allocated for the year 2012 to purchase new buses and spare parts and also to meet the cost incurred for repairing buses.

The SLTB is able to cover the cost with adequate profits under the current bus fares and productivity of the SLTB can be ameliorated by making existing management more efficient. The cabinet of ministers has already emphasised that the SLTB should be ushered in order to cover at least salaries of the employees preventing the misuse of the public money.