Hyderabad: Fearing damage, RTC feels temporary drivers unfit to run AC buses

Hyderabad: Fearing the temporary drivers are not competent to handle the costly AC buses, the RTC management has kept all the AC buses in the garages since the workers launched strike on September 5.

It has been 40 days since the strike and the Corporation is not using the AC buses so as to avoid damage because of inexperienced drivers. The Corporation has 377 air conditioned buses including 142 in the urban transportation. According to sources, the Corporation is not using the air conditioned buses since the RTC strike had started 40 days ago. Sources said that the officials do not want to take risk with inexperienced drivers on duty.

Out of over 10,000 bus fleet of RTC, there are 377 buses in the Corporation including the 40 AC electric buses, 89 Garuda Plus, 169 Rajdhani and 79 Vajra buses.

Majority of the AC buses are operated in the long distance routes and out them 142 are used under urban transport in major towns in the State. Similarly, under non AC category there are 584 Super Luxury, 285 Deluxe, 1624 Express and 8 semi express.

Sources said, since the strike the Corporation operated old to very old buses which have completed over 8 lakh kilometers. During the initial days, some of the temporary drivers refused to return to duties as they were unable to run the old buses.

Because of the low speed some of the drivers were running buses keeping the indicators on, said a union leader. The temporary drivers have dented the image of the Corporation of having safe travel tag, said the union leader. "There have been several accidents during the strike period and most of the times it was because of the driver's fault. The corporation does not want to take any chances as any damage would mean further financial burden on the Corporation," said a senior official.

When asked to a senior official, he said that some buses were being operated in some routes for the last few days. He further said that there were some issues with regard to availability of ticket Issuing machines and other the buses were not moved. In the coming days more buses would be operated in the long distance, he added.