Hyderabad: A solution continues to evade the problem of providing affordable transportation for thousands of students of engineering colleges on the city’s outskirts, as the RTC is finding it difficult to operate more additional city buses during college timings.

The corporation has been arguing that the colleges should slash the transport fee for their buses and implement staggered timings for the engineering colleges, but the managements are expressing their inability to do so. There are as many as 170 engineering colleges around the city and after a student travelling atop a bus fell and died, the corporation intensified efforts to solve the problem.

On Saturday, the corporation MD, V. Dinesh Reddy, convened a meeting of college representatives and students to discuss the issue. “If the colleges slash the transport fee of Rs. 1,000, more students would travel by college buses, thereby reducing the load on city buses,” Mr. Reddy argued.

His point was that the RTC could not press more services on college routes on nine sectors at the cost of other routes during college hours.

However, K.K. Rao of K.S. Raju College of Technology and Science maintained that the transport fee could not be slashed as the managements were hiring buses from travel agencies at a cost of Rs.50,000 per month. The Rs. 1,000 charge was barely enough to defray the costs incurred, he said.

Countering the argument, Mr. Reddy pointed out that most of the colleges on the outskirts enjoyed tax exemption benefits and less land cost, etc. “The managements are expected to provide transportation to students but many collect exorbitant fees, forcing the students to opt for city buses. In that case, the managements should also charge rates on a par with RTC only,” he said. Currently, a student pass costs just Rs. 85 per month in Greater Hyderabad area. He said the corporation conducted surveys on different routes and over 170 buses were pressed into service to help students. Students were also now being allowed to travel in Palle Velugu buses also on purchase of a different student bus pass ticket. Mr. Reddy said that the government had mooted the proposal of having staggered timings for the colleges. Many managements were also willing to change the timings, he claimed.

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