Hyderabad: Though the government is managing with the temporary drivers for most routes, skilled drivers are being dearly missed when it comes to the ghat roads. Keeping in mind the Kondagattu accident, in which more than 60 lives were lost, about 400 buses which otherwise otherwise travel the ghat routes have been suspended. Officials said that sending temporary drivers on those routes would be risky.
On any normal day, there would be around 31 buses running daily from the Hyderabad to Srisailam, which is a ghat route. However, all the services are now stopped and the passengers are being left with no other option for the last 10 days, since the strike started, according to TSRTC official information. As it is a complicated route, a two-way road but with no divider for the most part, not many private travels have also ventured on this route. The lack of bus services has also affected the crowd of devotees at the Srisailam temple, sources said.
An RTC driver, on condition of anonymity, said, “Even in the depots, only drivers with extraordinary driving skills are chosen for those destinations in the ghats and again they are given extensive training. Only then, those routes would be assigned to them.”
RTC officials confirmed that they are not running this service because they do not have skilled drivers to do the task and they are not using private drivers because that would be risky for the passengers.
Buses running in the city are also poorly occupied with the lack of confidence in the private drivers. A regular commuter from Secunderabad to Banjara Hills, Ms Utla Prathiba, said that though she has a bus pass, she is opting for the metro for her daily commute as she is not sure of the private drivers’ driving skills.
With the lack of staff, the TSRTC is not even taking note of the occupancy ratio of the passengers, which is a usual routine in all the depots.
