Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSTRC) Managing Director A K khan today said that the transport organization is working with the motto of service despite incurring losses every day. Talking to reporters here, he said the RTC was incurring Rs two crore loss per day and the total loss had mounted to Rs 560 crore. He said the RTC income had gone up during the last one week in the wake of the massive state wide raids, being conducted by the transport officials, on the private bus operators. Hinting that major changes would take place during the next few days, he admitted that RTC was incurring huge loss due to the private bus operators. He said 135 routes had been identified through which the private buses were running, taking away the profits of RTC.
The RTC and transport officials were undertaking inspections in 50 to 60 such routes to check the running of private buses. Mr Khan admitted that Vijayawada had become a hub for private bus operators and private operators were violating rules and working with a sole motto of profits which the RTC could not emulate.
He disclosed that the APSRTC had huge assets, worth Rs 3,500 crore and some of them were leased out. Steps were taken to identify such leased assets, he informed.
Mr Khan, who took charge as MD of APSRTC about a month ago, said he would give priority to increase the revenue source and occupancy rate, better maintenance and minimize expenditure in the organization. Answering a question, he made it clear that it was not possible for the RTC to maintain Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) in the city as it had to bear losses initially. As many as 3,000 buses would be inducted to its fleet and about 2,000 buses were being inducted in various districts in order to augment its services. UNI