RTC Strike Private conductors, DMs fudge collection figures

Mahbubnagar: The ongoing TSRTC strike has been troublesome to all but taking advantage of the strike private conductors and the collecting staff in RTC depots are allegedly fudging the collection figures.

While the private conductors were depositing less collection amount with the Depot Managers (DMs), the collecting staff in the Depots were further registering less collection in the records causing a huge loss to the RTC Corporation across various depots in erstwhile Mahbubnagar district.

The corporation has 3,915 RTC staff from various depots across erstwhile Mahbubnagar region and of this, 1,415 drivers and 1,597 are conductors and the remaining 803 are other staff working in various depots.

At present, the corporation has hired 300 drivers and 380 conductors on temporary basis. Earlier, in the Mahbubnagar region RTC used to earn anywhere between Rs 85 lakh to Rs 1.2 crore on a day to day basis. On weekends, its earnings used to be more than Rs 1.2 crore and during festival season the amount is over Rs 1.2 crore.

However, after the temporary employees were hired by the RTC, currently the corporation in Mahbubnagar region is earning only Rs 10 lakh to Rs 20 lakh daily. It earned Rs 19 lakh to Rs 20 lakh on October 9 and October 10, during the festival season. These are the figures being shown by the officials as recorded in the registers.

However, there are reports that the corporation is earning more than the official figures. Allegations surfaced that the officials were not showing their actual earnings in their official figures. There are also allegations that a portion of the income earned by the corporation is being pocketed by the owners of private buses, temporary conductors and drivers.

As there is no supervision by the higher officials of the corporation, the fudging of figures is being done. The State government has issued a schedule asking the corporation officials to run the buses on time. It has also asked the corporation officials to issue tickets to the passengers. However, the buses are not running on time at many depots in the district.

Barring Kalwakurthy depot, the tickets are not being issued at the other bus depots. The earnings made by the corporation should be deposited in banks concerned. However, it is not being happening ever since the strike began.

While responding on the issue, Mahbubnagar in charge region manager Ramana said, "we are taking steps to operate the buses on time. Till now we are doing our best to operate all buses in various routes on time. We have also come across some issues with regard to less collection from the conductors.

To overcome this issue, we are also taking steps to use Ticket Issuing Machines (TIMs) to issue the tickets to passengers. We are also creating awareness on how to issue the tickets among the temporary drivers and conductors. We are now focussing on the allegations of showing fewer collections. If any conductor pays less than what is recorded in the TIMs machines it will be extracted from them."