TGRTC New Buses: One thousand new buses to Telangana Road Transport Corporation, green signal for purchase, efforts to recover debt

TGRTC New Buses: The shortage of buses of Telangana State Road Transport Corporation will soon be resolved. RTC has been insisting on old buses for years. The burden on buses has increased after the government started free bus travel facility for women. In this background, Telangana Road Transport Corporation is preparing to purchase new buses.

At present there are not enough RTC buses in Telangana to handle the rush of passengers. An average occupancy ratio of 95 percent to 115 percent is recorded daily. After the launch of the free bus travel scheme, traffic has increased significantly. Running buses according to the crowd of passengers has become a problem. RTC also has a large number of old buses.

RTC officials say that they are trying to purchase new buses in Telangana as soon as possible. They are facing problems since the launch of Mahalaxmi Yojana. In this context, RTC and Transport Minister Ponnam Prabhakar received massive requests from constituency MLAs, MPs, Ministers and MLCs to increase the number of buses.

The RTC has submitted a report to the government stating that considering the current requirements, 1244 new buses are required in Telangana. The new purchase will include 500 buses to replace obsolete buses. The remaining 500 buses will be run according to the traffic. Up to 350 ordinary and express buses will be purchased for ‘Mahalakshmi’ passengers.

RTC estimates that the cost of purchasing one thousand buses will be Rs 350-400 crore. For this, cooperation has been sought from the state government. On the other hand, the government is paying more than Rs 300 crore per month for the implementation of Mahalaxmi Yojana. The result was that no clear assurance was received from the government regarding the purchase of buses. Along with this, RTC officials are trying to recover bank loan.

Earlier, loans were not taken due to losses of RTC. At present, most of the depots in Telangana are profitable. RTC is recovering from losses through Mahalaxmi Yojana. The government is paying for the money lost by RTC on free travel. As a result, 72 out of 97 bus depots are running in profit. As a result, Telangana Road Transport Corporation hopes that loan recovery will become easier.