‘There is one bus to Hyd from every mandal in Seemandhra’

• RTC will have to be closed in Seemandhra if State divided
• Bus stations developed with common revenue
• Bas Bhavan, MGBS have revenue from all regions
• People fear bad days for Seemandhra region

D Gopi

Ibrahimpatnam (Krishna): “Division of the State after 60 years is not acceptable to us. There is at least one bus to Hyderabad from every mandal, which explains the connectivity of the people from nook and corner of the State to the capital. It cannot be de-linked now,” asserted Ramesh Babu, an employee of the APSRTC Ibrahimpatnam depot in Krishna district, emerging out of the 30 minutes road blockade on the busy Vijayawada-Hyderabad national highway.

Ramesh Babu has different contentions on the capital city. According to him, the Hyderabad region of the APSRTC enjoys greater share from the revenue that Seemandhra buses bring every day and ‘for the past 60 years, we have been paying this income which was used for the development of bus stations including Mahatma Gandhi Bus Station (MGBS) and the Jubilee Bus Station.’ He further says that “we have allowed the officials to mortgage the biggest bus stations like Vijayawada, Guntur, Visakhapatnam and Tirupathi to develop MGBS, which is very recent one. What happens to that money?” His contention is that the RTC officials sitting at the Bus Bhavan have developed depots and bus stations in Telangana district with the money coming from the mortgage of the Seemandhra bus stations.

“The investments on Hyderabad bus stations, depots and the top class busses were from the earnings of the Seemandhra depots which take passengers from different parts to Hyderabad and other towns in Telangana region,” Ramesh Babu explained.

The APSRTC, which came into existence through an Act in 1958, two years after merger of Andhra and Telangana, today enjoys 98 per cent road connectivity covering 23,388 villages in the State operating 22,555 buses and 777 bus stations. The APSRTC is the world’s largest road transport network with 1, 23,784 employees working with 213 depots spread over 23 regions.

Giving clarity on their demand for integrated State, the APSRTC Employees’ Union zonal secretary Y V Rao expressed fear that the RTC would have to be closed in coastal districts if the State is divided. “The coastal districts have good train connectivity and people depend more on trains to move from one place to the other. But they opt for bus services to Hyderabad, which brings highest revenue and if this route is closed due to division, the RTC here would also have to be closed,” he said. The division move poses direct threat to over 20 depots in Seemandhra which would have to be closed, the staff fear.

Their concern is also for the hospital that provides health care for the staff and their family members. They fear that it would take several years to establish similar hospital in Seemandhra and hence not ready to part with the city. The APSRTC has over Rs 1 lakh crore property of which 70 per cent is owned by Telangana region. “This was developed with the common money and cannot be given to one region,” asserts Rao.

Above all, the idea of Hyderabad, Suryapet or even the closest town – Kodad – becoming inter-State makes their hearts heavy. “It is painful to imagine that Kodad, Suryapet and Hyderabad don’t belong to us and are part of a different State,” Rao said.

Besides the RTC staff, small vendors too have similar feelings attached to Hyderabad. For Shaik Khaza the division is not acceptable but ‘there is nothing’ in his hands. “They (those in power) decide and certainly it is in their interest and not in peoples’ interest,” he said. Sixty-year old Khaza lives in Paritala village. He moves around with a bag of salt on his cycle all through the week except on Saturdays. He sells salt and has no connection with Hyderabad. “I don’t even have relatives there. I don’t know whether my children will go there or not. But, today, as our leaders say, if the State is divided and Hyderabad is not with us, we don’t get funds to lay the roads because 70 per cent of income for the State comes from there. I really don’t know how far it is true but if it is true, we can’t leave Hyderabad, which was developed with the taxes paid by the people of this region,” he sums up.