Government can privatise bus routes, rules High Court

Hyderabad: Buoyed with the judgement of the High Court declaring that the state government has the authority to take policy decision on the functioning of the RTC and privatising bus routes, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has asked the officials to prepare an action plan.

The Division Bench, headed by Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan, on Friday struck down all petitions filed against the government's recent decision to privatise 50 per cent of the routes operated by the TSRTC.

The judges said the court did not have the power to question the state decisions unless it was unconstitutional.

With this, the TRS government now wants to put the decision to privatise 5100 RTC routes on a fast-track mode. It will soon invite tenders to run stage carrier services and will also go in for hiring buses.

Officials said that the tenders were already invited to hire 2000 buses in identified routes. After identifying the routes, tenders will be called to run the stage services by private operators.

By December end, the government will complete the official process to privatise 50 per cent of the RTC with an aim to improve competition in the public transportation and also reduce the growing financial burden on the RTC by downsizing the number of buses. Currently, the RTC is plying a fleet of 10,200 buses, including 2,000 hired ones.

It now remains to be seen what decision it will take about the issue of taking back the 48000 employees who have been on strike for the last 47 days.

The employees have now expressed their willingness to join duty without any preconditions. But sources indicate that the government will insist that they give an assurance that they will not participate in any future strike call given by the unions.

It may also decide not to pay salary for the strike period.