Telangana, AP Transport talks inconclusive

Telangana, AP Transport talks inconclusive
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Highlights

The talks between the Transport Ministers of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh on contentious issues like single permit for lorries, private transport and interstate permit of TSRTC and APSRTC buses remained inconclusive.

Delay deals deadly blow to TSRTC

Hyderabad: The talks between the Transport Ministers of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh on contentious issues like single permit for lorries, private transport and interstate permit of TSRTC and APSRTC buses remained inconclusive.

According to TSRTC officials, the APSRTC authorities did not heed to the demand of TSRTC to review and have re-agreement in allocation of interstate permits.

The Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) has been suffering losses of Rs 2 crore everyday because of alleged one-sided allocation of interstate permits on the long-distance bus services. While AP has permits to operate buses in 3.30 lakh km in Telangana, the TSRTC has permits only to operate buses in 90,000 km.

It may be mentioned here that buses make profits only in long distance services. The one sided permit allocation has resulted in the TSRTC losing 500 bus services.

Telangana Transport Minister P Mahender Reddy asked his Andhra Pradesh counterpart to take measures to rectify the anomaly.

But AP Transport Minister K Atchannaidu reportedly told him that if they accept the proposal, it would impact the livelihood of many workers of the APSRTC.

He also said the APSRTC had decreased some kilometers based on the request of the TSRTC. However, he said the issue would be further discussed in the next round of meeting to be held at Hyderabad in June.

According to officials, the administration of the corporation has been bifurcated into Andhra Pradesh and Telangana but the APSRTC continues to control all the bus permits as they were issued in 2015 before the corporation was separated.

The officials from Andhra Pradesh ensured that their state gets more permits compared to Telangana depriving it of its right, said a union leader.

Sources said that kilometers are the yardstick for entering into agreement on inter-state permits. The permits should be given on the basis of number of kilometers the bus would travel from the border of a particular state.

Giving an example, the official said that if a bus of TSRTC travels to Shirdi from Hyderabad the permit starts from Zaheerabad in Medak, the border of AP and Karnataka and Maharashtra.

The permits to Maharashtra should be given to the same extent of kilometers from Zaheerabad to the number of kilometers the TS bus travels.

Union leaders alleged that the officials were not allowing the permits to be transferred to Telangana. The Andhra Pradesh officials were deliberately delaying the issue of interstate permits leading to huge losses to the TSRTC, alleged the union leader.

Mahender Reddy urged the AP government to issue single permit to the private transporters including lorry owners as was being done in case of other neighbouring states.

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