RTC commuters suffer in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: Thursday was not the best of days for commuters of Telangana State Road Transport Corporation. Lack of buses and cancellation of services on major corridors and in many colonies made the daily commute miserable for many. Nearly 35 per cent buses in the city were hired and diverted to Warangal for the plenary programme of Telangana Rashtra Samithi.

The RTC’s Greater Hyderabad Zone has 3,779 buses including ordinary, Metro Express, Mero Deluxe, AC and mini. The corporation operates 3,519 buses every day with 42,736 trips covering 9.76 lakh kilometres to serve 32 lakh commuters.

The corporation allotted 1,327 buses to the TRS party's plenary and operated only 2,192 buses on Thursday. Of the 80 scheduled A/C buses, the TRS reserved 75 by paying the RTC. Minister Talasani Srinivas reserved all the 75 A/C buses for transporting party workers, including corporators and key leaders, to Warangal.

The city has about 2,700 A/C bus pass holders and the RTC sent SMS' on Wednesday stating that the A/C buses would not be available on Thursday, followed by an apology. The message advised A/C bus pass holders to work out an alternative for one day.

P.S. Somnath, a techie from Begumpet, said he took the A/C bus pass due to the heat. “I travel from Begumpet to Hitech City. Lack of buses led to a huge problem. We didn't even get regular buses on time,” he said.

An employee from the secretariat said he travels from Vanasthali-puram to Secretariat every day. “On Thursday, the RTC operated another bus which was not in a good condition. The driver said the regular bus was sent to Warangal,” he complained. A. Purushotham Naik, executive director of RTC’s Greater Zone, said the RTC would not stop renting out buses.

“We earn an average of Rs 7,500 on an ordinary bus per day. We got Rs 14,000 for each bus that was sent to Warangal. We got 45 per cent more income by sending buses to the plenary. We made alternative arrangements for the convenience of commuters,” he said.

Autorickshaws and cabs had a busy, field day
While the RTC did not operate required number of bus services, commuters have approached cab services and auto-rickshaws. Usually, the two major cab operators Uber and Ola reserve 10,000 cabs every day but, on Thursday, due to the rise in the demand, they operated almost all the cabs.

S. Kishore, an owner-cum-driver from Uber said that his two motor-cabs served more than 15 trips each against the target of 13. “Nearly, 1,000 cab drivers from city were engaged by TRS leaders and the same number of cabs went to Warangal from Ranga Reddy, Vikarabad and Medchal districts,” he said.

Meanwhile, mini-taxis and seven-seater auto-rickshaws were not operated in city outskirts on Thursday as such vehicles were engaged by the TRS leaders.