Once Mamata Banerjee assumes charge of office, one of the first thing she will have to resolve with the Centre is release of pending payments to the state under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) programme. This is crucial because lack of fund has held up supply of over 100 low-floor buses by Tata Motors to the state.
According to government sources, the buses are stranded at Kharagpur for over four months.
The state has cited lack of funds and has blamed the central government for not having disbursed up to R54 crore as part of the JNNURM funding. The confusion has put Tata Motors in a spot. Sources said that the company is now considering shipping the buses to other states that have the similar specifications and requirements. And since only Andhra Pradesh has similar low-floor specifications as Bengal it could put an additional financial strain on the company to transport the buses.
RP Singh Kahlon, principal secretary in the transport department in the West Bengal government, confirmed the development to FE. He said that since the central government had not disbursed the requisite funds for the purchases the Bengal government had little choice but to stall the purchases. ?The central government owes the West Bengal government R54 crore as part of the compensation package in the JNNURM scheme,? he said. So far, as part of the JNNURM scheme Bengal has bought close to 1,200 buses, he said.
As per the payment structures under the JNNURM scheme for the larger cities the Central government bears 35% of the cost of the buses while the remaining 65% is borne by the State government. ?Once we get the funding from the central government we would go ahead and make the purchases,? Kahlon added. He added that ?approximately 100 such buses? have not been bought by the WB government owing to ?payment issues.? A Tata Motors spokesperson declined comment.
What has further complicated the matter in the state is the existence of multifold government bodies that are responsible for buying these buses. In Bengal the government has divided the responsibility of the purchases of buses across four different corporations. These include the West Bengal Transport Infrastructure Development Corporation (WBTIDC), Calcutta Tramways Company (CTC), West Bengal Surface Transport Corporation (WBSTC) and Calcutta State Transport Corporation (CSTC).
Managing director of one of these firms told FE that it had bought 256 semi-low floor buses each from Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland and said that it had fulfilled its criteria, declining to comment on other companies? inability to make the purchases. Sources said that different government agencies further created problems for the private companies.
The complexity in payment structures created misunderstandings between the Centre and state adding to the woes of OEMs, said sources. For instance, as per the ?conditional funding? criteria set by the central government, the states have to prove that they had invested in supporting infrastructure including GPS network and availability of drivers before being eligible for funds. Also the states have to compulsorily set up a wholly owned public body for ensuring that the buses procured under the JNNURM programme are being used exclusively for urban transport.
?Various States are not able to keep up their commitment for buying the buses. This is creating a lot of financial strain on companies,? an industry source said. For the period between 2005 and 2012, the government has allocated a sum of R50,000 crore for JNNURM. In fact it is also learnt that representatives of the auto industry are likely to meet urban development minister Kamal Nath later this week to discuss the progress of JNNURM scheme.