PUBLISHED : 2 Aug 2024 at 04:00
Bangkok governor Chadchart Sittipunt said yesterday that City Hall will need more time to consider how to deal with the debts it owes to Bangkok Mass Transit System Plc (BTSC), the operator of the BTS Skytrain.
Billions of baht in debt have been incurred through hiring BTSC to operate the electric train service on two sets of extended sections of the BTS known as the Green Line.
The Supreme Administrative Court last week upheld a lower court ruling, ordering the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) and its business arm, Krungthep Thanakom, to pay the overdue debts incurred from hiring BTSC to operate the electric train service on the two extended routes and provide electric rail system maintenance services.
Upon this ruling, BTSC hinted that it was open to negotiations if the BMA was interested in swapping the debts with an extension of the Green Line’s operation concession.
Mr Chadchart said the BMA owes BTSC around 40 billion baht in accumulated costs of BTS operation and maintenance services. Each year, he said, the BMA also has to pay BTSC around 6 billion baht, the difference between the cost of hiring BTSC and the ticketing revenue BTSC gains.
He said that the BMA receives 90 billion baht in its annual budget each year, and adding the 6-billion-baht expenses together with the 40-billion-baht accumulated debts is quite a burden on the BMA. “The BMA will have to find a way out of this long-term budgetary burden. And whether the proposed extension of the BTS’ concession, due to end in 2029, will be an ideal solution or not is something we still have to ponder,” he said.