VIJAYAWADA: The AP State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) on Saturday announced a marginal hike in bus fares across all categories.
Speaking to media persons here, Transport Minister Perni Venkataramaiah (Nani) said the date from which the enhanced fares would come into effect would be announced in the next two days.
The State government gave its nod to the Corporation to hike the fares of Palle Velugu and city services by 10 paise per km and 20 paise for other categories. The last time when the APSRTC hiked fares was in 2015. However, in June 2018, the APSRTC had rationalised the fares of all services except Palle Velugu by up to Rs 4.
In April, the then APSRTC MD NV Surendra Babu had submitted a report to the TDP government to enhance fares by 15-17 per cent to ease the financial burden on the Corporation. Due to various reasons, the government did not give the APSRTC a go-ahead. “The government has decided to enhance the fares with the sole objective of bringing the Corporation out of losses. The fare hike became inevitable as the diesel price has been steadily rising since 2015 to reach Rs 70 per litre now,” he said.
He said the fares of Palle Velugu and city buses were enhanced by 10 paise per kilometre and 20 paise per km for other services, including Super Luxury, Amaravati, Indra, Deluxe and Garuda.
“Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has decided to merge the APSRTC with the government keeping in view the interests of the 54,000-odd employees. At present, the RTC losses stand at Rs 6,735 crore and it’s incurring Rs 1,200 crore loss every year. Apart from this, employees salaries, implementation of Pay Revision Commission (PRC) and other expenses are proving a heavy burden on the Corporation,” the minister said.
Nani said at least 23 per cent of the buses being operated in the State were hired by the Corporation and ruled out hiring more services.“We will renew the licences of the hired buses and tenders for this purpose will be invited soon,’’ the minister said.
The State government will phase out the buses which logged more than 12 lakh kilometres and new ones will be acquired, he said adding, “By March 30 next year, 240 new buses will be added to the APSRTC fleet.’’
On merger of the Corporation with the government, he said the process was going on and some technical issues were being sorted out.
“We are trying to introduce a Bill in the coming Assembly session to facilitate merger of the Corporation with the government on the directions of Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy,’’ he clarified.
Meanwhile, APSRTC Employees Union (EU) State general secretary P Damodar said that Corporation had not revised the fares since 2015, despite diesel price increase by Rs 40 in the meantime resulting in losses mounting to Rs 1,250 crore per year. In this scenario, there was no option for the government but to enhance the fares, he added.
Meanwhile, CPM State secretary P Madhu demanded that the government withdraw its decision to enhance fares. Instead, it should explore other alternatives to bring the Corporation out of losses, he said.
