VIJAYAWADA: The State-owned APSRTC is in no mood to provide any relief to its commuters by deducting the toll charge in the final ticket fare, following the demonetisation effect.
Despite the Centre’s extending the deadline the toll exemption to December 2, as a sign of relief to the cash-starved people who are queuing up outside banks and ATMs after Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes went out of circulation, the commuters travelling in the APSRTC and TSRTC buses are still not getting exempted of the toll charge.
“I bought a ticket at the Pandit Nehru Bus Station here for a Hyderabad-bound APSRTC bus and the officials charged Rs 426 as ticket fare including Rs 24 as toll fee. Why is the RTC violating the guidelines though the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways provided exemption on toll fee till December 3,” questioned M Balakrishna, a passenger. Meanwhile, commuters using online and mobile app services to book tickets also expressed their shock that they could not see the final fare at the time of booking. One could see the consolidated breakup fare only after the final payment. “When I opened the APSRTC mobile app to book ticket for Visakhapatnam from Vijayawada, I saw base fare of Rs 447 for Super Luxury service. But at the end, I was charged Rs 475 including various taxes,” rued another traveller.
In the last fortnight, several commuters entered into heat argument with the conductors, during their journey, for not giving any exemption on toll fee in the final ticket price. “We are given Ticket Issuing Machines (TIMS) by the management, which do not have any exemption on toll fare collection from the commuters. Our duty is to offer ticket for the commuters and more than that,” said K Veeresh, conductor of a Visakhapatnam-bound bus.
When contacted, the APSRTC officials admitted that Corporation is collecting the tax from passengers. “We pay around Rs 30 crore per month in advance to all toll plazas in the State. If toll plaza officials gave an assurance that respective exempted days will be taken into consideration for next month, we could give relief to passengers in ticket fare. If not so, we won’t take that decision since it drives us to face more losses,” said G Jaya Rao, APSRTC Executive Director (operations).