APSRTC in Impasse over running special Dasara buses to Telangana

October 4, 2020

VIJAYAWADA: Even as the Dasara festival is fast approaching, the AP State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) is still in a dilemma on whether it will strike an agreement with Telangana to run bus services to the neighbouring State. While the lack of coming to an agreement is bothering the APSRTC in terms of loss of revenue, it will burn a hole in the pocket of the commuters as the private bus operators might resort to fleecing.

APSRTC buses

Since June, the APSRTC has convened three rounds of talks with their counterparts in Telangana over resuming the buses services to Hyderabad from major cities like Visakhapatnam Vijayawada, Guntur, Nellore, Tirupati, Kurnool and Anantapur.
The Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) officials were firm and insisted their AP counterparts operate route-specific services instead of kilometre-based services, even as the APSRTC vice chairman and managing director MT Krishna Babu argued that there was no such practice elsewhere in the country.
Dasara festive season comes as a revenue generating one for the cash-strapped APSRTC, which is already in deep trouble due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Last year, the APSRTC operated 5,887 special buses to various destinations in the State from Hyderabad, and other special services to Chennai and Bengaluru from September 27 to October 7 as the demand for both the cities will be high among the passengers after Hyderabad.
Around Rs 229 crore revenue was augmented by the RTC last year, while Rs 209 crore revenue was earned in 2018 and Rs 194 crore in 2017, RTC official sources said.,
APSRTC vice chairman and managing director MT Krishna Babu said that they will once again meet their Telangana counterparts in the next couple of days and sort out the matter at the earliest .