Vijayawada : Former DGP Ch Dwaraka Tirumala Rao has been appointed as the ex officio chairman of the Andhra Pradesh Public Transport Department (APPTD). He was recently appointed as the vice-chairman and the managing director of the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation. Tirumala Rao retired from the post of DGP recently and was appointed as the MD of the APSRTC.

The APSRTC is one of the public transport corporations in the country with more than 50,000 employees and over 10,000 buses. The state government has merged the APSRTC with the transport department. Since then, many issues related to the employees, implementation of PRC, payment of allowances and others have cropped up requiring attention.

Employees Union, the recognised union of the APSRTC has been submitting representations urging the authorities address the grievances of the employees and resolve the pending de-mands.

Employees Union state president Palisetty Damodara Rao and the union general secretary GV Narasaiah in a press release on Thursday said the government issued GO 411 appointing Dwaraka Tirumala Rao as the fulltime commissioner of APPTD for the period of one year.

The two leaders said the government recently appointed him as ex officio vice chairman and MD of the APSRTC for the period of one year. Tirumala Rao holds two positions for one year.

The Employees Union leaders thanked transport minister M Ramprasad Reddy for appointing Dwaraka Tirumala Rao for both posts. They said there will be better co-ordination between the employees of the APPTD and management of the APSRTC if both posts are held by one person. They said the public transport department looks into the grievances of the employees and RTC looks at the maintenance of the buses and running the transport corporation. They said earlier Dwaraka Tirumala Rao had worked as the commissioner of APPTD for 46 months and recently retired.