ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s National Transportation Commission (NTC) has reduced bus fares by 11.14 percent, bridging the minimum fare down to 34 rupees, officials said.
NTC Director General Nilan Miranda said the new fares will be effective from August 04 midnight and will only be applicable to provincial and inter-provincial normal/non-luxury buses.
This is the fourth time bus fares were amended in 2022, with the last reform imposed on July 19 with a reduction of 2.23 percent for all bus types, bringing the minimum price from 40 rupees to 38 rupees.
Miranda told reporters on Thursday August 04 that the minister of transport had approved the price revision with the recommendation of the NTC.
The revision was being done for two reasons, he said. With Sri Lanka’s health authorities imposing a restriction in November 2020 limiting the number of people that can be transported in a bus to the available seat capacity, fares were hiked by 20 percent to reduce the loss incurred by the bus services.
“There are four types of bus services. Non luxury/normal buses can take more people than the seating capacity. Semi and luxury buses can take only people according to the seating capacity. But with the health authority recommendation, a regulation was brought in compelling non luxury buses to follow the rule. In order to continue the service, for non-luxury, we made a 20 percent hike in bus fares on November 11, 2020,” said Miranda.
But now, due to the ongoing fuel crisis and buses limiting their services, available buses are carrying more passengers over the seating capacity.
He added that diesel prices being reduced by 10 rupees on August 01 meant another 1.14 percent reduction in addition to the 10 percent, resulting in a total of 11.14 percent reduction in the bus fare.
“With that, and due to the requests from the general public, we recommended and got the permission to reduce 10 percent from the 20 percent increase we gave in 2020,” Miranda said.
“It will be only for normal bus transport,” Miranda said.
The fare for all normal buses, including inter provincial, provincial, buses in the SLTB”s Gami Seriya programme, buses under the student-trasnporting Sisu Seriya programme, and the under Nisi Seriya programme will thus be reduced.
“With that, the minimum bus fare will be reduced to 34 rupees from 38 rupees. It will be reduced on 350 instances [of ascending order in ticket value] and on the 350th instance, which is the highest priced ticket, the price will be reduced to 2,611 rupees from 2,882 rupees.” (Colombo/Aug04/2022)