HYDERABAD: Despite the government issuing several permits to private bus operators in the last week of October, only 116 buses have been pressed into service so far. According to officials, though the government has been giving permits to private players to replace the TSRTC fleet and restore normalcy to the strike-stricken State, the process is taking much longer than expected.
According to sources, though fresh tenders were issued for close to 1,200 new private hire buses to be inducted in the RTC fleet and majority of these tenders were also finalised, only 116 have hit the road. “We have given them a three-month deadline to give us BS IV buses which were registered after 2017. This will take time and so they have been given a 90-day deadline to bring in these buses. We can expect the whole fleet to be fully operational by December or January,” said a senior official of the corporation.
This means that though the total number of private hire buses has been increased to around 3,400, the actual number of these buses in service is barely 2,219, which includes just 116 from the latest tenders. These 116 are also older buses which were taken from other states or with registration as old as 2010. This also implies that in the coming days, if the CMO decides to give route permits to 5,300 more buses, in actuality it may take longer for the buses to hit the roads.
60% deficit in bus services
Meanwhile, Greater Hyderabad has been running on a huge deficit of buses, by an average of roughly 60 per cent for the last 33 days. Since the strike began on October 5, on an average only 1,400 odd buses from the 3,500 odd fleet are in service on a given day, that too for limited hours. From the data available for 25 days out of the 33 days of strike, during the strike period on an average only 1,400 buses have plied in Hyderabad on a daily basis. This is far less to meet the daily requirement of 33 lakh passengers the TSRTC previously catered to in the city. Ideally for every one lakh population, there must be 60 buses.
For Greater Hyderabad’s nearly one crore population, more than 4,200 buses are needed. The RTC officials note they are helpless as few private contract drivers are turning up. “We have pressed all buses into service in all critical areas that see high rush. Since we have no officials to rationalise routes with the existing fleet, we are unable to understand which routes need more buses at the moment,” said one official.