Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation to cut services to Telangana

Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) has decided to reduce bus services by 220 to Telangana by July 31 as per the agreement between the two states in terms of the inter-state permits with Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC).

Highlights:

• As a follow up to first round of talks held on May 10 in Vijayawada, the second round talks were held on Friday
• According to the agreement arrived at the talks, the APSRTC will reduce its services to TS by 220 by July 31

Second round of talks were held between the officials of APSRTC and TSRTC and other transport department officials at Bus Bhavan here on Friday. According to sources, AP has assured to decrease the bus services in a phased manner.
As part of this, the APSRTC would reduce 220 bus services by July 31.

The Telangana State Road Corporation has been alleging that it was incurring loss because of the illegal allocation of inter-state permits and losing Rs 2 crore every day because of less number of buses of Telangana plying in Andhra Pradesh.
First round of talks were held on May 10 in Vijayawada where the officials could not come to any conclusion.

Sources said that the officials have decided to review the situation once in three months and decide on decreasing the inter-state permits. The officials have come to a conclusion that the APSRTC would reduce the bus services as and when the validity of the permit ends and the Telangana buses would be increased.

This process would continue till 2019 and by that time the bus services of both the corporations would be as per the geographical area and a new agreement would be entered into later.Kilometres are the yardstick for entering into agreement on inter-state permits. The permits should be given on the basis of number of kilometres the bus would travel from the border of a particular state, the officials said.