With a massive fleet strength of around 5,500 vehicles criss-crossing the length and breadth of the country, SRS Travels is not just another transportation company. The company has grown from its humble beginning in 1961 when it was primarily a stage carriage bus company, connecting Bangalore with Kunigal, to become one of the largest in the country. It currently operates in five verticals – corporate employee commutation, tourist transportation, inter-city bus services, logistical services, and stage carrier operation.
The man behind SRS Travels’ spectacular growth story is Mr. K.T. Rajashekera. Not someone to sit and bask in his past achievements, this visionary has already charted out a distinct growth path for the near future.
The company’s goals for 2020 include plans to increase the turnover as well as enter new segments to expand its footprint. Going into details of the plans, Mr. Rajashekera observed: “We propose to increase our turnover to Rs. 1,000 crores by 2020 from the current turnover of Rs. 689 crores for 2015-16 (unaudited). We are planning to enter the hotel segment, which will be a complementary business for us since we are already into travels and tourism. We also have plans to expand our reach to educational institutions so that we can conduct educational tours for students as part of their study tours.”
Mr. Rajashekera offered a glimpse of the roadmap to achieve the company goals by 2020. “We want to focus on developing our infrastructure. We plan to increase our fleet strength and go for more hi-tech coaches from Volvo and Scania for inter-State night bus services, as they are really popular with our travelers. We also plan to expand our routes to connect more towns and cities across India, including Delhi in the North and Kolkata in the East,” he stated dwelling on the point.
Adding further, he said: “Our logistics services fleet consists of hundreds of trucks, and we plan to double our fleet strength in the next two to three years. We also plan to increase our operational/storage space at various locations. Currently, we have strong presence in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune. We plan to expand our presence in other locations too.”
The company’s key focus areas for 2020 include expansion of corporate employee commutation services, tourist operation services, logistical services and network of inter-city night bus services. In the case of the last named, SRS is considered a pioneer in the industry. It is particularly well known for its ultra-long distance buses. A good example is the Bangalore-Jodhpur bus service that covers a distance of nearly 2,100 km. Apart from this, the company is also considering addition of more routes such as Mysore-Nagpur, Bhubaneswar-Nagpur and Kanyakumari-Nagpur in the near future.
By M.K.Prabhakar