APSRTC to resume bus services to Tamil Nadu today

Tirupati: After a gap of nearly four months, the APSRTC is resuming its inter-State bus services to various places in the neighboring Tamil Nadu (TN) including metropolitan city Chennai, famous pilgrim centre Kanchipuram, Vellore and other towns on Monday following the Tamil Nadu government's green signal for operating services.

According to Chittoor Regional Manager T Chengal Reddy, the region to begin with will operate 35 to 40 per cent of its total 200 bus services to TN and will gradually increase the number of services depending on the demand from passengers.

As per the inter-State agreement between AP and TN, the Tamil Nadu State transport companies also operate same number, 200 bus services from the State to Chittoor district including Tirupati, Chittoor, Srikalahasthi and other places increasing the transport facility which was severely hit due to the pandemic, considerably.

Hitherto, the RTC was operating Chennai bus services up to Uthukottai on AP-TN border and the commuters used to take TN buses from there to reach Chennai and the resuming of the inter-State bus services provide the passengers with direct bus facility to Chennai and also other places in TN.

It is needless to say that, the resuming of bus services more so to Chennai and Vellore help the RTC Chittoor region increase its daily earning as the passenger flow from Chittoor district to these towns is more compared to other inter-State services like Bengaluru and Telangana State.

The daily earning of the Chittoor region is now about Rs 1.1 crore against its normal daily revenue (before the pandemic) which was Rs 2 crore.

The RTC gradually suspended its inter-State bus services since April this year after the Covid second wave and completely stopped them from May 5 with the pandemic turning most severe.