Total cost management practices in passenger road transport undertakings in Karnataka an empirical study

Abstract

In India, the cost of operation in the Passenger road transport sector is increase tremendously due to various reasons like a hike in the prices of the petroleum products, toll collection and the increase in the cost of labour, overheads etc. Increase the passenger fares, repeatedly will adversely affect on the middle-class people, who mainly depend on the public road transportation. Hence, passenger road transport undertakings have to concentrate more on the reduction of cost of operation. A study has been conducted to know the cost management practices in the passenger road transport undertakings in Karnataka. In this thesis, an effort is made to identify the factors that influence on the total cost in the passenger road transport sector with the help of analytical tools. newlineThe review of literature depicts that a number of research is undertaken on Cost management in passenger road transport undertakings in foreign countries. On the other hand, research studies in India convey that state-owned road transport undertakings are running under huge loss and studies on cost management in passenger road transport undertakings is very less. Therefore, it has become the need to study Total cost management practices in passenger road transport undertakings. newlineThe scope of the study is confined to select passenger road transport undertakings in state of Karnataka alone. Six passenger road transport undertakings are selected for the purpose of study. State Road transport undertakings (SRTU) viz., KSRTC, NEKRTC and NWKRTC are selected on the basis of their area of operations in the state. Private passenger road transport undertakings (PRTU) viz., S.G.M.T,Co. Ltd. Sagara , Shivamogga District and VRL logistics Ltd, Hubballi were selected on the basis of their registration in the state as a Public Limited Company before March 31st, 2010. In the co-operative sector, only one passenger road transport undertaking is registered in the state before March 31, 2010, that is Transport in Co-operative Services (TCS-Sahakara Sarige-1991) koppa, Chikkamagalur district. The objective of the study is to analyze the factors of total cost and its relationship with profitability in passenger road transportation of State Road transport undertakings and Private road transport undertakings. newlineThe primary data on the factors of total cost in passenger road transport undertakings is collected by using a structured questionnaire having three major parameters like a) Labour cost, b) Material cost, c) other Cost (tax , depreciation, Administrative and other cost and non-operating cost). newline newline