HYDERABAD: During World War-II when there was shortage for fuel, the Nizam State Rail and Road Transport Department (NSR-RTD) introduced charcoal powered buses in 1942 and double-decker buses in 1946. While air-conditioned buses caught people’s fancy just two decades ago, the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) introduced first AC bus in the then undivided Andhra Pradesh in 1970s.
Facts like these and more are what G Yugandhar, an employee of APSRTC, along with a few other employees commissioned by the corporation, is compiling in a book the developments of the APSRTC.
With the Telanagana state formation, there is a disarray in many repositories and ensuring that none of the history gets lost will be a challenge for all.
To preserve the State transport department’s developments for posterity, the APSRTC, which has its origin from NSR-RTD, has signed on five employees to sieve through 82-year’s worth of history and concisely document important achievements and events in a book.
The NSR-RTD started its operations in 1932 with 27 buses – 10 of these were given to Hyderabad, 10 were sent to Narketpally and seven to Kazipet. A total of 166 employees were employed during its inception. And till this year, the undivided APSRTC had a strength of 1,22,286 employees and owned 19,426 buses.
With eight decades of information to collect and sought through, this is no mean task for the five employees who constitute the panel working on the project.
The staff personnel are collecting their information from a variety of sources including veteran employees, old news paper records and documents from the corporation’s repository.
“We are also collecting some old and rare photographs from retired employees. Most of the times, we pick up documents stored in their attics. And our exercise involves dusting away cobwebs from a pile of documents and searching for photographs. Once found, they contribute a lot to the project,” explained Yugandhar.
Coming across many rare finds, for Yugandhar, a public transport activist as well, the experience has been as rewarding as agonising.
For instance, while spending hours bent of yellowed papers and frayed albums, Yugandhar came across a photograph of the former Prime Minister of India, the late Indira Gandhi, while she was boarding an APSRTC bus. And there are quite a few other finds like these, he assures us.
However, while old documents may prove tricky to read with the fading ink, fading memories of the veterans they’re interviewing is another matter. Officials are rather wary of the various claims coming up and want to make absolutely sure of their authenticity before publishing this information in the book.
“Verifying the veracity of the many claims coming to us is a challenge; we are trying to find a way to ensure that they are indeed authentic,” said M Ravinder, secretary to the corporation.
Despite the mountainous task, Yugandhar expects to complete their work in the next three weeks; thereafter copies of it will be published and circulated. In the mean time, those who do have information or old and rare photographs of the corporation and their work are welcome to send it to seccorp@apsrtc.gov.in.