TSRTC yet to get slice of govt budgetary pie

Hyderabad: As the State government is yet to release Rs 183 crore out the Rs 1,500 crore allotted to the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) in the last year financial budget, the corporation is going through a lot of financial crunches. However, the TSRTC has been allocated the same against the previous year's budget of Rs 1,500 crore in the current financial year budget, despite the Corporation craving for government support.

As the Covid-19 has caused a huge blow, the TSRTC has been facing huge losses and is unable to get revenue even during the earning times.

According to the RTI, the State assembly approved Rs 1,500 crore but even after the financial year is completed the government has just released Rs 1,317 crore and Rs 183 crore is still pending. The RTI mentioned that the concessions of the budget were Rs 790 crore, whereas the loan head amount was Rs 162 crore and the investments was Rs 365 crore with the total amount Rs 1,317 crore of Rs 1,500 crore budget.

The State government has been allocating Rs 1,500 crore during the last couple of years. During the previous year's budget, the government allocated Rs 1,500 crore for the Corporation and the same has been allocated in the current financial year.

However, the experts said that the Corporation would require almost Rs 6,000 crore to come out of slumber. Trade Union Leader and Former Director Corporation M Nageswar Rao on obtaining information under RTI Act said, "as RTC is experiencing extreme financial distress with Rs 9,000 crore of losses as on January 31, 2022 and more than Rs 5,000 crore have been taken as loans, there is an urgent need to rescue the government owned RTC from financial quagmire. He urged the government to release the budget amount to the cash strapped RTC.

Since the government special chief secretary finance and transport are also the Directors of the TSRTC, the onus lies on them to get the balance of Rs 183 crore released to RTC," added Nageswar.