APSRTC MD clarifies on extra charges on Sankranti special services, asks people to co-operate

APSRTC MD Dwarka Tirumala Rao responded to the concerns of the extra charges on special buses announced during the Sankranti festival. He said the diesel rate have gone up by 60% and the bus would run empty on return and hence the ticket charges was increased by 50%. He hoped that people will understand and co-operate with the government. The MD said that four thousand buses come from Telangana and Karnataka every day and 6970 extra buses are ready to run from Friday to January 18.

He made clear that the special busses will have the series nine and said that 60% of regular services and 50% of special buses have been reserved so far. The RTC MD asserted that the buses will stop at the respective boarding stations based on the number of passengers.

It is known that 4,145 special services will run from January 8 to 14 with 1,500 bus services allotted to Hyderabad, 650 services to Visakhapatnam, 250 to Vijayawada, 100 to Bangalore, and 45 to Chennai respectively. The remaining 1,600 services were assigned to all district centres as well as major towns. The RTC operated a total of 2,982 special buses before Sankranti last year.

The RTC also runs special bus services for those returning after the Sankranthi festival. 2,825 special buses will run from January 15 to 17. One thousand of them were allotted to Hyderabad, 200 buses to Visakhapatnam, 350 to Vijayawada, 200 to Bangalore, 75 to Chennai, and 1,000 special buses to other parts of the state.