HYDERABAD: In the absence of a bilateral agreement with Andhra Pradesh, which has been long pending, the Telangana Transport department has said a ‘big no’ to Odisha Transport Department which has come forward with a unique proposal for the state. Andhra Pradesh is situated between the two states, Telangana officials have recently expressed their inability to go ahead with Odisha’s proposal.
According to senior transport officials, Secretary of Odisha State Transport Authority (STA) recently approached T Raghunath, Secretary of Telangana State Transport Authority for signing an inter-state agreement between both the states for a transport vehicle, including the state run RTC buses, private buses and good trucks.
“Secretary of STA Odisha invited us for a meeting on August 19 in Bhubaneshwar, but we don’t have an agreement with AP and transport vehicles to Odisha have to ply through AP. So, as of now, we are not ready for any agreement with Odisha,” said Raghunath, adding that Odisha transport department first has to enter into an agreement with their counterparts in AP.
However, as there is no further clarity on the long pending inter-state reciprocal transport agreement between both Telangana and AP due to several disputes, the Odisha government have to wait for some time. “We will definitely accept their proposal only after finalising the same with AP government. We have also advised the Odisha government to finalise their inter-state agreement with AP and come back to us,” Raghunath said.Once finalised, the official said, all the three states have to sign a tri-party agreement.
RTC to upscale services to AP, generate more revenue
Sources confirmed that after much persuasion, transport officials from both AP and Telangana are going to hold a meeting and sign a transport inter-state agreement by this month-end. Once the reciprocal agreement between Telangana and AP is finalised, the move would enable TSRTC to operate more number of buses to different areas in Andhra Pradesh and generate more revenue.
At present APSRTC operates about 500 buses to Telangana every day, mostly to Hyderabad. On the contrary, TSRTC operates only 250 buses a day to AP, authorities said. Buses from AP cover nearly 2.77 lakh km in the Telangana every day, while Telangana buses cover only 1.11 lakh km in AP. There is scope to augment services to AP and in turn, mop up more revenue. TSRTC will pitch in for operations covering 3 lakh km in AP as well. “When both corporations operate the same number of buses and cover the same distance, payment of taxes will not be necessary,” the official said. APSRTC generates about `1.50 crore everyday through 500 buses operated to TS.