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Telangana raises bus fares to bail out cash-strapped RTC
On an average, the bus fares will go up by 20 paise per kilometre. The RTC is expected to net an additional revenue of ₹750 crore from the increased fares.
The Telangana government on Monday announced a hefty hike in the fares of state-run Road Transport Corporation (RTC) buses with effect from midnight to bail the corporation out of a deep financial crisis.
On an average, the bus fares will go up by 20 paise per kilometre. The RTC is expected to net an additional revenue of ₹750 crore from the increased fares.
According to a notification issued by the RTC, the minimum fare for an ordinary bus in Hyderabad has been increased from ₹5 to ₹10 for a distance of 8 km. The maximum bus fare has been revised from ₹30 to ₹35.
In Metro Deluxe buses, the minimum and maximum fares would be ₹15 and ₹45 respectively.
In the rural services like Palle Velugu, the minimum bus charges have been revised from ₹6 to ₹10 and the maximum fare has been hiked from ₹73 to ₹100. “The revision has been done in such a way that there is no problem of small change for passengers and the RTC,” the corporation said in a statement.
The increased bus fares would also be applicable to all bus services operating across Telangana including Deluxe, Express, Super Luxury, Garuda, Rajadhani, Vajra and Vennela. “The revised bus fares are applicable to those services which start after midnight, while for the night-out and long-distance bus services which start before 12 am, would allow passengers with old fares,” the RTC statement said.
Chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, who held a luncheon meeting with a select group of RTC employees at his Pragati Bhavan camp office on Sunday, announced that his government would allocate ₹1,000 crore in the coming budget to bring the RTC out of the losses, apart from mobilising additional revenues through increasing the bus fares.
The 48,000-odd employees returned to their duties from Friday, ending their 55-day long strike. On Monday, the RTC management started crediting their salary for the month of September and announced that all the employees would also be getting their salaries for their strike period in due course.
