Date:20/10/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/10/20/stories/2007102061700800.htm

Andhra Pradesh

RTC fare hike unwarranted, says Narayana

Staff Reporter

‘Corporation will make Rs. 1,000 crores if it operates luggage carriers’

RTC can phase out old buses
Minister slams TDP

GUNTUR: The APSRTC can boost its revenues by operating exclusive luggage services to transport goods, Communist Party of India State secretary K. Narayana has said.

The RTC would get a revenue of Rs.1,000 crore, if it successfully operates the luggage carriers, he told reporters here on Friday.

The CPI leader was here to inaugurate the memorial ‘stupam’ of a veteran CPI leader V. Balagangadhar Tilak at Pedakakani.

Stating that the hike in fares was unwarranted, he said that the passenger occupancy ratio had been increasing by 10-12 per cent every year and the RTC had been increasing the bus fleet by 10 per cent every year.

Instead of burdening the common man, the RTC could reduce the operational losses by phasing out old and worn out buses which had clocked more than 5-6 lakh km.

A day after APSRTC Managing Director V. Dinesh Reddy hinted at possible increase in fares, Transport Minister Kanna Lakshmi Narayana said that the State Government was yet to take a decision on the issue.

‘Autonomous body’

“The proposals to affect increase in fare are still being examined by the RTC. We would examine the proposals and take an appropriate decision. It is too early to comment,” he said here.

The Minister, however, said that the RTC had been functioning as an autonomous body and could take a decision to affect a fare hike on its own.

The RTC has spent Rs. 340 crore towards regularising the services of 3,750 contract employees and increasing the salaries of its employees and it was left to the RTC to find ways and means to plug the revenue deficit.

Reacting to the Opposition criticism over the hike in fares, he said that the TDP regime had affected hike in fares six times during the nine-year tenure of N. Chandrababu Naidu beginning 1995.

He said that the ministry would discuss with the RTC to increase the efficiency of the ANL parcel services and study the proposal to have an exclusive goods transport system mooted by the CPI State secretary.