HYDERABAD: The TSRTC has quietly dropped a bombshell on bus passengers. Since Sunday, the fare in all bus services other than ordinary has gone up. The State-owned bus transport services provider, which termed the hike as a passenger cess, issued an order very discreetly on March 23.
After it began implementing the imposition of the cess from Sunday, the news broke out, causing widespread consternation among the passengers. A cess of Rs 5 is being levied on passengers travelling on Express, Deluxe, Super Luxury, Rajadhani, Garuda, and Garuda Plus buses.
After the addition of the cess, the final fare in Express and Deluxe services would be rounded off to the next multiple of Rs 5 and for the remaining services, the final fare would be rounded off to the next multiple of Rs 10.
This means that in the first category, a bus passenger would have to pay more than Rs 5 per journey, in respect of adult as well as child passengers in the first category and more than Rs 5 and up to Rs 10 per journey in respect of adult as well as child passengers.
Besides this hike in ticket fares, the tariff for monthly passes has also gone up, which will be implemented from April 1. For GBT (General Bus Ticket), the tariff for ordinary has gone up from Rs 950 to Rs 1,150, for Metro Express from Rs 1,070 to Rs 1,300, for Metro Deluxe from Rs 1,185 to Rs 1,450. For Pushpak and MMTS-RTC Combo Ticket, the fare has gone up from Rs 2,500 to Rs 3,000 and from Rs 1,090 to Rs 1,350 respectively.