Two hundred buses are idling in 106 depots islandwide due to a lack of tyres, Minister of Transport Dallas Alahapperuma said at a ceremony on May (30), to mark the inauguration of a prefabricated tyre factory at Ampara at a cost of Rs. 20 million. It has an out put of 200 tyres monthly.

In the East alone, there are 31 buses idling in depots for want of tyres, he said.

The annual loss incurred by the SLCTB totals to Rs. 1.4 billion.

He attributed the loss chiefly due to the subsidised season tickets issued for students and on night and dawn operations where private buses are not operative.

He said that under Mahinda Chintanaya, two more similar factories are under construction in Ekala and at Kaduruwela in Matale.

50 depots are operating on a no loss, no profits basis.

The SLCTB functions under most stringent conditions amongst state services. The employee’s salaries are paid in two instalments.

The Minister reminisced that the first victim of the now defunct LTTE terrorism was the CTB. In 1973, the LTTE set fire to a bus in Prabakaran’s birth place, Velvetithurai.