The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : RTC to charge more for festival specials

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 26, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

RTC to charge more for festival specials

Special Correspondent

Corporation spends more money to run specials compared to the regular services, says Dinesh Reddy

Dinesh Reddy seeks to allay fears of employees about retrenchment
‘Government wants to selectively quote the recommendations of IIM, Bangalore’

HYDERABAD: Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation V. Dinesh Reddy has said that the corporation would charge between 30 to 50 per cent higher fare in the 3,375 specials that would be pressed into service during Sankranti festival season.

Justifying the decision, he said that the corporation needed to spend more money to run specials as compared to the regular services.

Mr. Reddy also rationalised the management’s move to hire 1,500 additional buses saying it was in the best interests of the corporation. “We have placed orders to buy 3,000 new buses. It is boom time and, with an occupancy ratio of 72 per cent and increasing patronage, we need more buses”, he said.

Seeking to allay the fears of employees that this move would lead to retrenchment, he pointed out that the APSRTC would have to appoint drivers for the new buses and conductors for the hired ones. According to a cost benefit analysis, the corporation could save Re. 1 per km. if it operated hired buses.

The Managing Director said the report by the Expert Committee from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore, had recommended that corporation could hire buses up to 20 per cent of the fleet strength whereas the hired buses constituted only 11 per cent now. “Even by hiring 1,500 more buses, we will not cross that mark”, he said.

Meanwhile, the Joint Action Committee of APSRTC employees said it would stage dharnas before offices of the corporation where tenders are slated to be opened on December 26 and 27 for hiring 1,500 buses. General Secretary of the APSRTC Employees Union K. Padmakar said that the dharnas would be staged from 12 noon to 3 p.m. at the Mahatma Gandhi Bus Station here.

Staff & Workers Federation general secretary R. Lakshmaiah said that the IIM’s expert committee had also recommended that the Government give an annual assistance of Rs. 250 crore for four years to take care of capital expenditure like purchase of buses. “But the Government wants to selectively quote the recommendations. Karmika Sangh general secretary K. Vijayakumar said the APSRTC National Mazdoor Union was not taking the issue seriously enough and sticking to its schedule of striking work from January 3, 2008, by which time the tender process would have been completed.

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