High TSRTC Fares Drive away Passengers

Hyderabad: Passengers particularly the techies travelling through the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) inter-state services especially from Hyderabad-Bengaluru, Hyderabad-Mumbai and Hyderabad-Andhra Pradesh stretches are seen opting for other state bus services as the TSRTC is now charging high fares for the travel.

On these routes the occupancy ratio would be 100 per cent and even more during the weekends. The Corporation used to charge additional charge to the existing fare during the weekend given the huge demand from the passengers, but the burden of high fares forced the passengers to travel through other state bus services.

However, ever since the Corporation increased the fares, the occupancy ratio had drastically fallen in the TSRTC a/c bus services. According to sources, on an average everyday only 10 to 15 passengers were travelling in the A/c buses. "Passengers are coming and enquiring about the fares but not travelling in the buses," said a conductor. The ticket price of A/c buses in TSRTC for Hyderabad-Bengaluru route is between Rs 1,200 and Rs 1,300 whereas the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) charges around Rs 1,000.

It had been observed that as passengers are not preferring to travel through TSRTC services, the KSRTC and Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) are taking advantage of this and operating additional special buses. They are operating over a dozen of special buses to clear the rush of passengers in their buses.

Rahul, a regular commuter to Hyderabad-Bangalore route said, "KSRTC Airavat Club Class services charge Rs 1,000 and during the day it charges Rs 800, and KSRTC Rajahamsa Executive charges Rs 840. Whereas, the TSRTC Garuda Plus charges Rs 1,200 and Super luxury charges Rs 950. With this high price burden, I switched to other state bus service."

Likewise, the passengers commuting to various districts of Maharashtra were also facing a variation of Rs 200 and Rs 300. "Travelling in TSRTC has turned into a burden for the passengers, as it charges very high fares compared to other state services. The TSRTC a/c services charges Rs 1,550, whereas MSRTC charges Rs 1,200 with Rs 100-Rs150 extra during weekends."

The TSRTC also approached other state corporations and wrote a letter to increase the fares as it was increased in Telangana. However, they refused to increase the fares stating that they have tough competition and would not want to lose passengers.

A union leader said that the State corporation had imposed various cess and additional cess for long-distance passengers. "If the officials do not act in time, all the passengers would shift to other operators leading to further losses. What will be the use of running buses without passengers? It will be a wasteful expenditure on diesel and two drivers in the bus," said a union leader. He demanded the management to take correct measures immediately.