Kochi: Crisis-ridden KSRTC will perish if it strayed away from its reformist path selected by the government to revive it, strategist Sushil Khanna has warned.

The past practices of KSRTC were unscientific for which it was paying the price now, Khanna told reporters at Thiruvananthapuram.

The corporation should utilise all the buses at its disposal, he said. Many States had started taking buses on lease which had turned out to be profitable, Khanna, a professor of economics and strategic management at the Indian Institute of Management (IIMC), Kolkata, said employees and unions should help the management. The unions had to cooperate with the management to infuse new life into it, he said.

The KSRTC had performed well after undertaking reforms in the last few months. The scrapping of double duty system (DDS) had helped it in a big way to use dead wood.

Under the previous DDS system, the driver and the conductor used to work for two days and take two days’ off.

The DDS and introduction of government pension a few decades back were the main enemies of the transport company. Owing to pressure from unions successive governments, it was not possible to do away with it. The DDS was scrapped by the management after it reached a flash point where KSRTC was not able to pay wages and pension.

The corporation should utilise all the buses at its disposal, said Khanna who was here to discuss with government issues related to implementing his recommendations.

Khanna, who is associated with Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration, Katholieke University in Belgium, is likely to be helpful in turning it around.