RTC officials discuss inter-state bus services

As a preliminary exercise for finalising the proposals for inter-state bus services, a meeting of senior officials of APSRTC was held here on Friday.

APSRTC executive director (operation) K Brahmananda Reddy (Vijayawada), executive director, Kadapa Zone K Gopinatha Reddy, executive director Nellore K Adam Saheb along with Tirupati, Nellore, Chittoor and Annamayya district public transport officers (DPTO) discussed the proposals, including increasing the number of bus services in the existing inter-state routes, keeping in view the passenger flow increase due to population increase, introducing bus services in new routes and also reviewing the performance of the existing inter-state bus services.

Tirupati DPTO T Chengal Reddy said that following the government orders two mutual agreements were made between Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh in 1976 and 1996 for running inter-state bus service.

In 2004 and 2005, though GOs issued for the third mutual agreement, due to some unavoidable reasons it was finalised resulting in the bus services in the interstate routes being run on temporary basis, renewing the licence time time, Reddy said adding that the two state-run corporations now started the exercise for finalising proposals which will be approved in the third mutual agreement which will be signed soon.

As the last mutual agreement was inked 27 years back, there is a need for the third mutual agreement, keeping in view the present expansion of transport services, he said, informing that after a few more rounds of discussion the proposals will be finalised for approval in the mutual agreement.

APSRTC Tirupati, Chittoor, Annamayya and Nellore (districts) region operating the inter-state bus services to various cities in Tamil Nadu, including Chennai, Coimbatore, Kanchipuram, Vellore, Tiruvannamalai, Tiruttani and other places on the basis of mutual agreement.