TSRTC inks MoU with Bisleri

Mineral water in 358 bus stations from Dec 10

Hyderabad: Telangana State Road Transport Corporation is making all arrangements to provide branded mineral water bottles to the passengers in the bus depots from December 10. The corporation on Wednesday entered into a MoU with the Bisleri International Private Ltd (BIPL) for the supply of the bottles.

As per the agreement, BIPL would make available initially Bisleri will supply one litre bottles for the passengers in all the shops and bus stations. Every water bottle would have the logo of TSRTC and also Bisleri. In the later stages, the company would make available bottles of 5, 10, 15 and 20 litre capacity. The one litre bottle would be available for a price of Rs 20, said the RTC officials.

A senior official said that this move was to curb the sale of local branded, spurious and unsafe water bottles at more exorbitant prices in the bus stations. The official said that the corporation has 358 bus stations. The bus stations have been categorised based on the potential commercial revenue being realised. There are eight major bus stations in the state. Similarly, 17 bus stations are A-Class, 88 stations are B-Class and 245 are C-Class stations.

The officials said that the TSRTC has a fleet of 10,500 buses of different types carrying about 90 lakh passengers per day with an average turnover of Rs 3,300 crore in the form of traffic revenues and Rs 100 crore in the form of commercial revenue towards renting the stalls in the bus stations, advertisements in buses etc.

“At present, the stalls in bus stations are permitted to sell water bottles to passengers. Several complaints such as sale of non branded spurious water bottles and that to at exorbitant rates were collected,” said the RTC MD G V Ramana Rao. He said that the existing drinking water facilities such as tap water, RO plant water in the bus stations would continue.