Notwithstanding the efforts of the APS RTC management to increase the Occupancy Ratio with a host of customer-friendly initiatives, the callousness of some employees is resulting in lowering the image of the corporation in the eyes of the public.
“I had travelled by the Visakhapatnam – Narsapur Super Luxury bus on January 26. The bus was scheduled to arrive at 10.40 p.m. at NAD Kotha Road Junction in the city. There were about a dozen passengers, including women, waiting for the bus. When the bus did not arrive even after 11 p.m., the waiting passengers grew restless and tried calling whatever RTC numbers they had,” says Prasad of Visakhapatnam.
“I called on the toll free number of RTC and they gave misleading replies like: ‘It must have been caught in a traffic jam’, ‘must have already left’.
When my daughter called up, she was made to wait on the line and finally asked to call again,” he says.“The bus finally arrived at 1 a.m. I came to know through the driver that the tyre/tube had to be replaced and the mechanics had not attended promptly as the bus belongs to the Narsapur Depot. The city depot should have either replaced the bus or promptly rectified the problem instead of trying to pass the buck,” Mr. Prasad felt.
The RTC officials are talking of GPS platform to enable passengers to know the running status of their bus (including city services) but the officials are unable to give the correct information of a long distance bus, which suffered a technical problem right in the city depot.
I had travelled by 18520 Mumbai LTT – Visakhapatnam Express from Secunderabad to Visakhapatnam last week, says a regular traveller Uday Bhaskar. The train was jam packed with passengers. Our coach was dirty and the doors were not getting locked.
I came to know through a fellow-passenger that the train had reached Mumbai (LTT) around 5 a.m. and was kept idle for two hours before starting on its return journey from 7 a.m.I want to know from East Coast Railway (as the rake belongs to it) why it had prepared the timetable in such a fashion where there is no time available for even secondary maintenance at LTT?
The one way distance is 1,500 km.
It means that there will be no maintenance for 3,000 km. Secondly, the journey was nice till Bezawada but from Gudivada many people with general tickets got into the reserved coaches.
From Rajahmundry, though this train had no halts, it stopped at several places and finally reached Visakhapatnam at 12.10 p.m., one hour behind schedule.
It was taken on platform no. 5 even though PF s 1 and 8 were free. Trains coming from or going towards Bhubaneswar are given preference in the allotment of platforms. I wonder why E Co R is allotting PF no. 5 to LTT-Vizag 18520, which brings around 1,500 passengers on an average.
I suggest that this train should be speeded up and the running time reduced. Train no. 12718 Ratnachal is overcrowded and another Intercity Express should be introduced from Vijayawada to Visakhapatnam via Gudivada and Bhimavaram, 22848 LTT-Visakhapatnam Superfast Express (via Nagpur) should be made daily to reduce the rush on 18520 and all trains originating/terminating at Visakhapatnam should start either from PF 1 or PF 8.
Air Costa will offer complementary snacks on board its flights on select sectors during February. The sectors are: Hyderabad-Vizag, Vizag-Hyderabad,
Hyderbad-Vijayawada, Vijawada-Hyderabad, Bengaluru-Vijayawada and Vijayawada-Bengaluru routes.
“This is a small gesture from our side for the overwhelming response from the customers on these sectors,” says the airline CEO Capt. KN Babu.
Reporting By B. Madhu Gopal
