HYDERABAD: A PIL has been filed in the Telangana High Court against the decision of the TSRTC in entrusting RTC buses to inexperienced and unfit drivers who are becoming responsible for road accidents during the ongoing strike period.
Even since the 50,000 odd RTC employees went on strike from October 5, the state government has hired private drivers and conductors to ply buses in the state. But those hired persons do not possess requisite skills and experience in running public transport buses and as a result the number of road accidents have increased, it said.
Petitioner Gopala Krishna Kalanidhi, an advocate of the city, urged the court to direct the authorities concerned to make it mandatory for all private drivers to undergo a thorough training for 90 days in running RTC buses under the guidance of retired drivers of the corporation before they were allowed to ply on the roads.
In fact, the drivers who are used to driving other buses like Volvo cannot run RTC buses so efficiently because the break system is different in both the buses.
People’s lives would be at risk if the government goes ahead with its decision to hire thousands of private bus drivers, the petitioner said. Besides the Transport Minister, the Chief Secretary, principal secretary to transport and in-charge managing director of TSRTC were named as the respondents. The matter is expected to come up for hearing on Monday.