While the loss-making Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) authorities have been making tall claims about the maintenance of punctuality and good relations with the commuters, it turned out to be otherwise at Karimnagar.
The RTC buses are the only mode of public transport for the people here, but on Monday, first day of the week, the bus station complex was packed with the commuters travelling mostly to Hyderabad. The college-going students and other employees too struggled to find any bus at the bus station.
With the RTC employees being engaged in the trade union elections and majority of the staff going on leave to participate in electioneering, it cast shadow on number of services run. The passengers travelling to Hyderabad had to wait for more than an hour and half to board a bus.
As soon as a bus arrived, the commuters rushed to climb the bus and secure a seat. Women found it difficult to board the packed buses. The RTC authorities had also issued advance reservation tickets to the commuters to travel in the super luxury buses, but even they had to wait.
A college student Srishanka Chakra, who was going to Hyderabad to join his classes, had purchased reserved ticket for super luxury bus at 12.45 p.m. to board the bus at 1.15 pm. But, he was forced to wait for the arrival of bus till 2 p.m. He said that the RTC inquiry officials were reluctant to answer to the commuters’ queries on the timings of bus services.
He was not the lone commuter but several hundreds of them had complained against the RTC authorities for not maintaining punctuality of bus services during the peak hours. When contacted, the RTC authorities said the situation will improve only after the union elections on Tuesday.
