TSRTC: Vice chairman and managing director of Telangana Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC), VC Sajjanar has made it clear that hike in bus fare was unavoidable and inevitable! He said that the TSRTC never wants to trouble its commuters but the increase in the bus fare is unavoidable as the corporation is facing huge losses. He further stated that there is an increase in diesel prices, spare parts, etc.
TSRTC
Sajjanar has sent a proposal to the state government to increase the fare of its bus tickets in a bid to cope up with losses caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, and aggravated due to the price hike in diesel and spare parts. “The corporation has proposed a hike of 25 paise per kilometre for ordinary and Palle Velugu buses and 30 paise per kilometre for express buses and other services. I request the honourable minister to consider the proposal of the TSRTC management and take it to the chief minister because it’s long overdue,” Sajjanar said.
The transport minister Puvvada Ajay Kumar, in response, said that he will take the proposal to the chief minister and request him to take it under consideration as early as possible and see that TSRTC recovers from heavy losses. Citing a survey conducted by the RTC via a private organisation, the minister stated that common people aren’t bothered about the ticket fare “According to the survey results, only 4.3% of commuters are bothered about the ticket fare hike. Majority of them are worried about the problems that TSRTC faces,” he added.
Sajjanar said that the cost of spare parts increased by up to 60% as manufacturers sought to offset rising input cost. This, he said, affected maintenance of TSRTC buses and drove costs up. Another factor behind the increasing manpower cost, TSRTC MD pointed out, are the rising salaries and allowances. Touching upon rising fuel costs, he said that the price per litre has increased from approximately Rs 70 to Rs 94 in about two years.
“Though painful, the fare hike is the only way out. As a state-owned corporation on average, we serve about 37 lakh passengers each day and many a time the number has reached 1 crore a day. We also operate several buses to remote areas as a social responsibility, irrespective of profit and loss, which everyone is aware of,” the TSRTC statement mentioned.