Vijayawada: Union urges RTC to increase bus services

Vijayawada : The Andhra Pradesh Public Transport Department (APPTD) Employees Union expressed concern over the decreasing number of passengers travelling in the RTC buses and urged the APSRTC management to increase the buses to meet the requirements of the bus passengers.

Employees Union state president P Damodara Rao and general secretary GV Narasaiah wrote a letter to the APSRTC MD Ch Dwaraka Tirumala Rao and ED (operations) A Koteswara Rao on Wednesday. The EU leaders said bus passengers travelling in the RTC buses are decreasing due reduction in services in the last four years. They said in 2020, around 60 lakh passengers used to travel in the APSRTC buses per day and now the number has come down to 40 lakh per day.

He said the RTC has gradually decreased the services from 10,500 buses to 9,500 buses in the last four years. They urged the RTC management to take the opinions of the lower-level employees and increase the bus services to meet the requirements.

The EU leaders urged the RTC to take measures to prevent unlawful plying of private buses near the RTC depots and other illegal methods followed by them.

They said earlier, the supervisors used to monitor the movement of passengers and boarding of passengers at the bus stations and helped to increase the occupancy ratio. They said the RTC has removed the supervisors at the bus stations and important junctions as part of downsizing and cutting costs.

They urged the RTC management to find the reasons for decreasing the RTC bus passengers and stated that the students and other sections will suffer if the RTC reduces the buses, which will also bring discredit to the government too.

The EU leaders said the RTC is also reducing the travelling distance by decreasing services every month. Transport services like autorickshaws, jeeps, maxi cabs are available in urban and rural areas and private buses are illegally plying near RTC buses against the rules of the transport department. The EU leaders said as per the rules, private bus services should not ply in the radius of two kilo metre from the bus stations but no efforts are being made to check the private buses near the bus stations.

They questioned why the transport and the police departments are not preventing the private bus operators operating the private buses near the bus stations and stated that these private bus operators are exploiting the passengers and preventing the RTC from earning revenue.