Public transport blues

PS: This is not a rant about daily public transport commuting in Bangalore.

A couple of weeks back I went on my random roaming after a long time, to Tumkur (~70km from Blore). The cost of an ordinary KSRTC fare from Bangalore to Tumkur was Rs.51. It was not the high cost, for the public transport cost has been steadily going up in Bangalore, but the comparison that stuck me.

Ordinary Bus ticket cost for 5 people ~ Rs.250

Diesel usage for a normal car for 70 km ~ 5 liters => 5x50 ~ Rs.250

(I have not counted other charges, including the car cost/rent)

KSRTC has a linear scale of costing and I don't expect that the cost to go down as the distance increases. So what we see is a kind of dangerous trend of discouraging the use of public transport even on cost grounds (most of other grounds like comfort, time keeping, availability etc. have largely been put to the garbage long ago). I understand KSRTC/BMTC make profits, all right (the only public transport system in India, as they claim), but at what cost ? Would it cost as much if the corruption that starts as low as BMTC conductors is stopped ?

I get the memories of the times in Belleville, Canada, where my friends will hire a car every weekend and make the wheels cover thousands of kilometers, for meager percentage of cost if we were to use the public transport system. I kept myself busy on my bicycle there and never dared to use their public transport system, though I really wanted to try out. The fear that our country is moving in that direction is strange. Though I perceive the reasons for these two trends as different (in the West the oil cost is kept low due to supply/demand and public transport cost high due to both supply/demand and oil lobby).

I roamed around almost all of south karnataka relying on these very KSRTC buses (and might continue to do so), but as a public transport fan, I see this trend really disturbing. But just next door, the cost of road transport in TN is opposite. The government subsidies it and they run at loss, alright, but isn't Rs.20 for the same distance of 70 km a bit too low compared to Rs.50 ?

PS: Please do point out flaws in my point of view, if you find any.