VIJAYAWADA: Cash-strapped Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) proposes to hike bus fares. If the proposal gets the approval of the State government, fares may go up by anywhere between 15 and 17 per cent and burn a hole in the pocket of passengers.The last time the RTC hiked passenger fares was in 2015. Despite increase in occupancy ratio, the State-run Corporation is facing severe losses due to rise in diesel price and other reasons, officials said.
Highly-placed sources said the Corporation proposes to revise passenger fares to ease the financial burden it’s facing. A decision, however, will be taken only after May 23 when a new government will be in place. “Whichever party comes to power, bus fare hike is inevitable,’’ the source pointed out. A week ago, APSRTC Vice Chairman and Managing Director NV Surendra Babu, during his Visakhapatnam district tour, said that 116 of 128 bus depots in the State were in losses and revision of fares was imminent to shore up the finances of the Corporation.
As part of it, Surendra Babu has reportedly made proposals for increasing fares between 15 to 17 percent and the same would be submitted to the government for approval. As the existing government cannot take any policy decisions, the proposal will be submitted to the new government. Speaking to Express, APSRTC EU State general secretary P Damodar said the Corporation had not revised fares since 2015, despite diesel price increased by Rs 40 in the meantime and losses mounted to Rs 1,250 crore.
“For instance, the RTC operates 5,000 Palle Velugu services at a loss of Rs 7 per each kilometre amounting to Rs 1,000 crore loss per annum. Yet, the Corporation gets no exemption from motor vehicle tax of Rs 330 crore per annum. On several occasions, the management has urged the government to exempt RTC from the tax considering its financial condition, but nothing happened,’’ he said.
He said instead of making excuses, corporation officials should pressurise the govt to allocate Rs 2,700 crore per annum in the budget to bring the Corporation out of losses. The RTC MD recently observed that pay revision increased the burden of RTC.