Tirupati: Curfew relaxation helps RTC improve revenue

Tirupati: The curfew relation extended by the government from 6 am to 6 pm paved the way for the APSRTC to increase its bus services to improve its daily revenue.

In Chittoor region, the curfew relaxation which came into effect from June 21 saw the region increase the number of busses being operated to various places from 378 to 584 in 166 routes which in turn helped the region increase its revenue from Rs 27 lakh to Rs 49.54 lakh.

With the increase of bus services, the region is now able to extend its daily operation from 80,000 km to 1.6 lakh km, said Regional Manager T Chengal Reddy. Reddy said that the after the curfew relaxation extended till evening, the region resumed most of its long distance bus services including Visakhapatnam, Kurnool, Anantapur, Kuppam etc. while the inter-state bus services also to Bengaluru (28 buses) and Hyderabad (7 buses) improving travel facilities for the common man, who are depending on the state transport for travelling.

Stating that the bus services to Chennai are yet to resume, he said RTC buses were now operated up to Uttukottai and Tada on Tamil Nadu border from where the passengers travel in Tamil Nadu buses to reach Chennai.

The regions' daily average income which was Rs 2.5 crore fell down to Rs 25 lakh with curfew relaxation remained only for 8 hours and now increased to Rs 40 lakh thanks to the extension of curfew relaxation, he said exuding hope that in the coming days the region will increase its revenue further by operating more bus services in tune with the demand from public.

RTC is running only 100 buses by operating 300 trips daily and ferrying 7,000 Tirumala pilgrims which is only 25 per cent of average daily transportation of pilgrims, which was more than 30,000 during the normal period. The non-operation of bus services to Chennai are the major reasons for the low revenue, he explained.

In addition to the passenger bus services, the region is also operating daily cargo bus services from Tirupati to Vijayawada and Vijayawada to Tirupati accepting all types of parcel to get more revenue, he added.