HYDERABAD: The Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC), which ferries around 30 lakh passengers in the city every day, has not bought a single bus for plying in Greater Hyderabad limits for the last seven years.
The last time TSRTC purchased new buses was in 2015 under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) scheme. Telangana had received 552 TATA buses under JNNURM of which 422 were pressed into service on the roads of Hyderabad.
Now, TSRTC is planning to press 1,020 new buses into service in the city. It’s learnt that of this, 320 will be electric AC buses and run like a metro express service, while the remaining 700 buses will be refurbished from super luxury buses that have been operating between Hyderabad and districts. In 2019, 40 electric buses were launched in Hyderabad under the FAME scheme.
Even though 700 buses will be deployed in Greater Hyderabad Zone, the size of the TSRTC fleet will remain the same, since they would be replacing the 700 buses that have completed 15 years of service on city roads. The average lifespan of RTC buses is not more than 15 years or 12 lakh km. However, there are some buses in the RTC fleet that have done over 15 lakh km as their engines are in good condition.
“Any bus whose registration number doesn’t start with TS07Z / TS08Z / TS09Z is not new. This is important because we are getting many new-looking buses registered somewhere else in the State. These are all express or super luxury buses rebuilt as city ordinary,” said Sai Chaitanya, a transport analyst.
The 700 super luxury buses were operated for almost seven years and they would be refurbished and replace the old city buses. However, the process would start only after the procurement of new super luxury buses in place of 700 old ones.
TSRTC has already replaced 300 old buses in the city with re-furbished vehicles. All TSRTC buses are refurbished at the bus body unit at Miyapur, where the seats are changed and required modifications suitable for city operations carried out.
At present, there are around 2,900 city buses, including 900 metro express services, operated on a daily basis.