VIJAYAWADA: District collectors have requested the state government to allow inter-state bus operations after June 8 as they are finding it hard to handle passengers arriving on flights and trains, Principal Secretary (Transport) MT Krishna Babu told TNIE on Tuesday.
About 4,000 people have reached AP from Telangana using private vehicles, and screening them and gathering their details has become a herculean task. In this regard, a decision on inter-state bus services will be taken in a couple of days, and most probably they will resume on June 8, Krishna Babu said.
Though the Central government has permitted inter-state bus services, the AP State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) is yet to decide on resuming such operations as it has not received permission from Telangana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, he explained. Intra-state services were resumed from May 21.
“We already wrote to the Telangana government after the fourth phase of the lockdown began, after May 17, but didn’t get a response. Similarly, we contacted the Karnataka and Tamil Nadu governments over resuming of inter-state bus services. The Tamil Nadu authorities said they are not ready to allow buses from other states, and the Karnataka government is yet to give its consent on the matter,” Krishna Babu said.
When it was pointed out that Telangana has permitted inter-state transport, Krishna Babu said no specific guidelines have been issued with regard to resumption of bus services. “We will write to the Telangana government about this again and get its consent at the earliest,” he said. Contradictory to the AP government’s stand, sources in Telangana said AP has denied permission to operate inter-state RTC buses. The TSRTC has identified a bus station at the border to drop passengers, from where the APSRTC can bring them to Andhra Pradesh.
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