APSRTC cancels evening services to Agency villages till Dec 9

Parvathipuram (Vizianagaram): The people living in Parvathipuram Agency area need to reach their homes before 7 pm or they should prepare to stay at Parvathipuram only.

The people belonging to remote villages of Kurupam, G L Puram and other mandals are forced to reach their villages just before sunset as the APSRTC has cancelled the bus services to all these Agency areas for 10 days, till the completion of Maoists martyrs’ week.

Every year the Maoists observe Martyrs Week and remember their demised leaders and if possible they conduct some meetings in villages. Some incidents of violence like burning buses, blasting buildings were also reported during previous years.

So the government has taken precautionary measures and cancelled the bus services to remote areas. Actually those villages have very less bus services and some of the hill-top villagers need to travel minimum of 10 kilometres to reach the nearby mandal headquarter and later they would go to Parvathipuram and Vizianagaram on their personal works.

Villages like Duggeru, Udayapuram and Tadikonda are some of the villages where the Maoists had conducted some meetings previously. So the Parvathipuram depot has cancelled the bus services to these villages till December 9. The RTC is running only day services and instructed their staff to stop the night halt services. So the bus services to all the villages in these remote areas are stopped by 7 pm.

If anybody is hurt or is suffering from ill-health in the villages after 7 pm, they have to hire an auto-rickshaw or some other private vehicle for one week. K Rama Rao of G L Puram mandal said, “I came to Parvathipuram on some work and I wanted to see some other relatives in the town in the evening but due to cancellation of bus services, I have changed my plan and leaving for my home early,” he said.