HYDERABAD: As the number of Covid-19 cases in Telangana is gradually dipping, the State government is trying to get the city’s public transport connectivity back on its feet. Close to a month after Hyderabad Metro services were started, the footfall has increased from the initial 19,000 a day to almost 50,000. In addition to this, the TSRTC has also started city buses on 25 per cent of the routes, which has given a slight bump to the revenue expected from city services.
TSRTC has also started interstate bus services between Karnataka (except to and from Bengaluru), Maharashtra and Telangana from Monday onwards. Drivers of private cab aggregators are also relieved as business seems to be picking up.A well placed source from Hyderabad Metro said, “While we have definitely had a gradual increase in footfall, it looks like we have hit a stagnation point. People who need to travel by Metro for work are already doing so, however, unless more IT companies, schools and colleges open up, we are not expecting to see a rise in the number of passengers in the near future.”
On the same lines, a source from TSRTC said, “There has definitely been an increase in revenues. However, even in the 25 per cent functional routes, we are not seeing heavy footfall. While we are actually earning revenue from city buses, instead of incurring losses of `300-400 crore as before, more routes need to be opened up. But we have not received any such directives.”
A substantial chunk of Metro’s footfall is recorded by IT employees, while school and college students make up for most of TSRTC’s footfall. To top it off, the stalemate situation between APSTRC and TSRTC is paving the way for private bus services to earn massive revenues on the very profitable Andhra Pradesh-Telangana bus routes.