Hike in RTC bus fares, power tariff on cards in Telangana

HYDERABAD: The stage is set for a hike in power tariff and TSRTC ticket fares soon. The TS Discoms and TSRTC sought the government's approval for the hike in the last week of September but the government kept these proposals on hold due to the Huzurabad Assembly bypoll.

With the bypoll now out of the way, the state Cabinet is expected to meet after Diwali to discuss and finalise the quantum of increase.

At a meeting held by Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao at Pragathi Bhavan on September 21, transport minister Puvvada Ajay Kumar and energy minister G. Jagadish Reddy requested the Chief Minister to hike RTC bus fares and power charges saying that the TSRTC and TS Discoms were reeling under serious financial crises due to non-revision of tariffs for long. They pleaded for an immediate hike in the charges.

They reportedly told the Chief Minister that power charges were last hiked in April 2015 while the RTC fares in December 2019. Responding to this, the Chief Minister asked both the ministers to submit proposals to the Cabinet.

A week later, on September 28, the Election Commission of India released the schedule for the Huzurabad Assembly byelection. With this, the government kept hike proposals on hold.

TSRTC chairman Bajireddy Goverdhan and managing director V.C. Sajjanar informed the Chief Minister that diesel prices had gone up by Rs 22 per litre during the last one-and-a-half years. This imposed an additional annual burden of Rs 550 crore on the RTC.

They said the prices of tyres, tubes and spare parts had increased significantly, pushing the RTC into further losses. This caused an additional burden of Rs 600 crore per year.

The officials said the RTC suffered losses of nearly Rs 3,000 crore due to Covid and subsequent lockdowns and restrictions, adding that the Hyderabad region alone was incurring a loss of Rs 90 crore per day. They said all the 97 bus depots were running in losses.

The Chief Minister had said in the Assembly in March 2020 the government had not carried out its plan to increase bus fares due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Unless the charges were hiked, it was difficult to sustain TSRTC due to increased operational costs and Covid losses, they said.

Similarly, TS Transco CMD Prabhakar Rao, who was also present in the meeting, brought to the Chief Minister’s notice the huge losses incurred by TS Discoms due to non-revision of tariffs for the last six years and the Covid situation. They urged the Chief Minister to hike power charges to help Discoms tide over the losses.