TSRTC riding out of red

​Hyderabad: Do you know the secret behind the TSRTC making profits? Over 4,000 staff have retired during the last four years and bus services to various cities have come down. The management had hired buses, instead of purchasing them. RTC is in profits but at the cost of its services.

Recently, Transport Minister P Mahender Reddy said that 27 depots had started making profits and 56 depots have brought down their losses and soon many other depots would also cut losses. As on today, the losses suffered by the Corporation are Rs 480 crore, according to officials in RTC.

The services have been decreased and with limited services and heavy rush, the revenues are bound to increase. “If the bus services are not in operation, there will be no chance of operational losses because the cost incurred per km is Rs 38.89 and the earnings per km is Rs 34.80 resulting in a loss of Rs 4.09 per km,” said a senior official.

According to official figures as per the ‘TSRTC at a Glance’, as on December 2017 the total staff working in TSRTC was 52,895 whereas the staff during May 2015 were 56,625, showing a decrease of 3,730 employees. The number has further increased and now gone up to over 4,000 employees, said a source.

 Giving an example, a Union leader said that there used to be 24 services to Mumbai but now there are only four services. Similar is the case to other remote locations in the State. The authorities have decreased the services resulting in limited buses and overcrowded buses, the union leader said.

Employees Union General Secretary K Raji Reddy said that the number of hire buses has doubled in the last four years. During the undivided Andhra Pradesh there used to be 1200 hire buses but after formation of Telangana, the number of hire buses has increased to 2,400. Earlier, there used to be tender period and after the end of tender period, the authorities used to call fresh applications with non-refundable deposits but now the officials are extending the tenders with re-agreement method without calling fresh applications, said Raji Reddy.

TSRTC Telangana Jathiya Mazdoor Union (TJMU) leader K Hanumanthu said that the actual reason for increase in the profits in some depots was because of the increase in the occupancy ratio. The authorities first decreased the services in the interior areas and the buses get crowded with lesser service resulting in increases in the occupancy ratio upto 105 per cent.