Chennai: The Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) collected Rs 9.5 crore as penalty from OHM Global Mobility, which operates a fleet of 625 AC and non-AC electric buses in the city on different MTC routes, for not fulfilling the service conditions, an RTI reply has revealed.The sum has been collected for the financial year that ended in March 2026, though OHM started operating electric buses with a fleet size of 120 buses in May last year before expanding the operations with 625 buses over the next few months.The RTI reply has confirmed that the MTC has paid Rs 80 crore to OHM, a subsidiary of Ashok Leyland for its operations.OHM operates electric buses under the gross cost contract (GCC) model for MTC under which the latter pays Rs 80.86 per km to the operator, subject to a minimum assured operation of 200 km per bus per day for a period of 12 years.Ensuring minimum fleet availability (generally around 95–98%), meeting reliability standards, achieving the minimum daily kilometres committed under the contract are some of the key obligations the operator should fulfil or pay penalty. Though the RTI reply did not give a break-up of the penalties levied, MTC officials maintained that the penalties are collected on a monthly basis based on their performance for priority and non-priority standards. “This is to improve the standards of performance and is globally accepted format,” added a senior official.
