HYDERABAD: “I’ll ensure that 100 per cent of period and old buses will be replaced by the time my tenure is over -- in 8 to 9 months,” stated Somavarapu Satyanarayana, Chairman, TSRTC at a press conference in the aftermath of the tragic bus accident at Kondagattu that claimed 61 lives.
“It is a bad habit to run buses with more than its capacity and that is the primary reason for the accident. There was no mechanical fault in the Kondagattu accident,” Satyanarayana said while explaining the sorry condition in which the 10,500 fleets of TSRTC buses are functioning. “In one day we ply our buses for 36 lakh kilometres against the recommended 15 lakh kilometres.
And, that is putting a single bus to continuously move, in a day, for more than 2.3 times, averagely. If we have to adhere by that standard then 800 buses should be scrapped every year.” he argued.
Currently, under flack, the cash-strapped corporation seems to have finally taken control measures in avoiding further embarrassment as it looks to reconsider pending “files” to align the organisation on a positive growth trajectory, barring the poor condition of its fleet of buses.
Such files, Satyanarayana said, “will ensure in tapping subsidies from central government. To this effect, a new report is set to come in 2-3 months.” Cross model subsidies given out by the central government will also be tapped and the best operations across the world will be found out, he added.
Kondagattu ghat road closed following accident
Jagtial:Taking a serious note of recent road accident in Kondaguttu, where 57 people, including 39 women and four children, were killed and 31 injured, after an overcrowded TSRTC bus swerved off a ghat road and hurtled 30ft down onto a valley at Sanivarampet village in Jagtial district, officials concerned closed the ghat road and erected barricades on Thursday. To ferry devotees to the temple, the RTC has introduced two mini buses in that route. Collector A Sharath along with SP Sindhu Sharma, inaugurated the buses, which will ferry devotees from Dongalamarri stage to hillock temple