HYDERABAD: Even after about one and a half months of announcing a system to address the problems of RTC commuters, the corporation has failed to kick off the system. In the last week of December the corporation had claimed that they would introduce a helpline to which complaints about various issues can be sent through SMS.
RTC named the initiative as ‘RTC Mee Kosam’ for passengers in Andhra Pradesh and as ‘RTC Mee Thodu’ in Telangana. Numerical codes were assigned to problems such as Code 1 if women are harassed and Code 2 for rash driving. Officials of the corporation said on Tuesday that it would take a few more months for the system to be put in place.
Enter ‘complaints against APSRTC’ in web search engines, and websites will be listed out which are filled with complaints against rude behaviour of drivers and conductors, commuters fleeced of money, ill-maintained buses and others.
Announcing the system in December, the corporation said passengers travelling in RTC buses want to share their problems experienced while commuting in buses. But they refrain from doing so as complaining is a time-taking process.
And to address this problem, they said phone numbers would be allotted to Telangana and Andhra Pradesh to which passengers can send a SMS.
The SMS would be forwarded to officials concerned who would solve the problem. Upon failing to do so, the grievance would be forwarded to higher officials. However, till date, neither the system or phone numbers have been put in place.
Admitting that the system is not ready, A Koteshwar Rao, executive director (IT) of RTC, said that they entrusted the programme to a private company which is developing the software, and the company would hand it over in March.