Free bus travel turns spotlight on need for TSRTC to boost fleet strength

Hyderabad: While the Maha Lakshmi free bus travel scheme for women introduced by the Congress government has been a hit, the sudden demand for bus services has shone the spotlight on a lack of a sufficient number of vehicles in the TSRTC’s fleet.

Officials of the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC), said that while more buses will be added on popular routes and new routes created based on demand, the addition to the fleet would only be done after a study on the travel pattern is completed.

However, they estimate that the fleet would have to expand to a size larger than it was before the Covid-19 pandemic struck.

Pre-Covid-19, the TSRTC operated 10,460 buses from 97 depots across the state. When operations resumed after the pandemic-induced lockdowns on May 19, 2020, the number of buses decreased due to low demand then.

Subsequently, the corporation discontinued buses on low-occupancy routes and decreased the frequency in routes where passenger footfall fell sharply.

Already steeped in losses, the TSRTC faced further challenges as demand for cheaper tickets and an increase in diesel prices proved a double whammy and left it crippled, unable to operate at full strength.

Currently, the TSRTC is operating 8,000 buses, with complaints of poor frequency and lack of bus services on some routes becoming commonplace.

TSRTC officials said that with the government boosting the footfall with the Maha Lakshmi scheme, they would need to operate more buses