Inter-State bus service only after new pact: TSRTC

Hyderabad: The TSRTC officials are proposing the government to go in for kilometre based inter-state bus permits agreement with APSRTC because of the one- sided agreement entered before the bifurcation of the Corporation by some officials.

The cash-strapped TSRTC has been facing losses because of the raw deal which it got in the inter-State bus permits, which were decided when the Corporation was separated into two.

The Telangana Corporation got the opportunity now with buses not being operated because of the corona lockdown. Sources in the Corporation said that the Telangana officials had tried to talk to their counterparts on several occasions on the inter-State bus permits but the Andhra Pradesh officials were reluctant to take forward the talks. The officials of APSRTC have now reportedly agreed to enter into a new agreement.

After the Centre gave relaxations in the lockdown rules, the officials from Andhra Pradesh have approached their Telangana counterpart for operating the buses. However, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao has asked the officials to start buses only after entering into a fresh agreement.

However, kilometres are the yardstick for entering into agreement for bus permits. The permits should be given on the basis of number of kilometers the bus would travel from the border of a particular State.

Giving example, a senior official said that if a bus of TSRTC travels to Shiridi from Hyderabad the permit starts from Zaheerabad, which is the border of AP and Karnataka and Maharashtra. The permits to Maharashtra buses should be given to the same extent of kilometers from Zaheerabad to the number of kilometers the bus travels in Telangana.

Officials said that before the bifurcation of the Corporation, a GO was released allocating bus permits between two new States. As per the notification, TSRTC buses could travel in about 90,000 kilometers every day in Andhra Pradesh whereas the APSRTC buses can travel 3.5 lakh kilometers per day, which led the Corporation to lose about 500 bus services and also to suffer a loss of at least Rs 2 crore every day, the official said.

Sources said that the officials now have decided to make proposals on a parity basis which would be based on the kilometers. If the APSRTC bus runs for 1,000 kilometers, TSRTC will also run for 1,000 kilometers. The official said that the Corporation would enter into an agreement first with Andhra Pradesh and later with Karnataka and Maharashtra. With new agreement, the Telangana Corporation can get good revenues as more number of buses can be operated in major towns in Andhra Pradesh, said the official.