Private travels make most of Sankranti demand

Tirupati: The exorbitant fares being collected by private buses during the Sankranti festival season have put the passengers in a tight spot where they are unable to find any alternative. In the absence of any strict policy guidelines, the private bus operators are at liberty to fix the fares as much as they liked to earn more profits by fleecing the passengers.

While RTC has decided not to hike the fares in the special buses too this time, it is learnt that the hike in the fares in private buses is around 70 per cent compared with the RTC fares. On normal days, this difference would be around 10 per cent. Sources said that RTC will operate more than 6,000 special buses during this festive season whereas the private operators will ply over 10,000 special buses.

These special buses will be operated up to January 13 and again on 18 and 19 to facilitate the return journeys. These days, the demand for bus tickets has surged multiple times with many people trying to book their tickets in advance. The study on the bus fares of RTC and private operators revealed that between Hyderabad and Tirupati RTC is charging Rs 911 for semi-luxury, Rs 1,450 for Volvo and Rs 1,630 for sleeper buses.

In the same route, the fares in the private buses range from Rs 1,600-1,800 for sleeper class, Rs 2,300-2,500 in Volvo and Rs 2,300 to 2,900 in sleeper services. Huge difference in fares could also be seen in other routes such as Tirupati-Vijayawada, Tirupati-Chennai and Tirupati and Bengaluru. For instance, each ticket in Volvo service from Tirupati to Bengaluru in RTC buses costs Rs 562-632 whereas in the private buses it ranges between Rs 2,090 to 2,790.

A passenger who was trying to book tickets for his family to go to Hyderabad commented that even after booking the tickets at higher prices, there will be much uncertainty on the operation of the particular service if one goes by the previous year example as the service in which he booked was cancelled 10 hours before the journey time which shattered all the plans.

Though RTC fares are lesser than private bus fares, passengers generally prefer the private services to get more facilities besides flexibility in pick-up and dropping points. Also, private services are available at different timings and the passengers can choose their convenient time to travel. However, the passengers were demanding stringent policy measures to control the abnormal price hike, especially during the festival times.