HYDERABAD: With an objective to beat off competition from private operators, the TSRTC has decided not to burden passengers by charging extra on the special services it plans to run during the upcoming festival season. The corporation is expecting to help around 16 lakh people reach their destinations during the Sankranti holidays.
Speaking to Express, TSRTC MD VC Sajjanar said that the corporation will be operating 4,318 additional buses between January 7 and 14. To travel in 585 of those services, passengers have the option of booking their tickets online. The RTC has set itself a target to generate an additional revenue of Rs 12 crore during this period.
“There will be no additional fares. We will be catering to two lakh additional passengers per day,” he said. Post Covid-19 second wave, this will be the second time the RTC will be running more than 4,000 additional buses.
Earlier in October, it put into service 4,035 special buses during Dasara and generated additional revenue of Rs 3.5 crore. As part of its strategy to check movement of unauthorised services and cut competition with private players, the officials of both RTA and TSRTC are gearing up to control ‘unruly vehicles’ which will ply between Telangana and AP during Sankranti.
Special teams comprising Motor Vehicle Inspectors and officials from Vigilance Wing of RTC will ensure that no unauthorised vehicles ply during this period. Both the RTC and RTA officials will continue to work in close coordination as they did during Dasara. The RTA officials revealed that they would be stopping unauthorised cabs and buses within city and on the outskirt during Sankranti too. “These teams are working actively and will continue their crackdown on unauthorised operators,” informed an RTA official.
The officials, who invoked section 66 and 192A of TS Motor Vehicle Act, booked over 20 cases against ‘white number plates’, private vehicles being operated as taxis, and seized around 10 vehicles on the outskirts of Hyderabad during Dasara. In the city limits, the RTA officials had booked 104 private buses and seized five vehicles.