YSR Congress Kamalapuram MLA Pochimareddy Ravindranath Reddy has said that APSRTC unions are unable to resist the Telugu Desam government which is trying to push the corporation into losses and then shut it down.
Announcing that he was nominated as honorary president of the YSRC RTC Mazdoor Union here on Monday, Mr Reddy said that Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu had a history of misusing RTC during his previous stint of nine and a half years. Even in the second stint, Mr Naidu was trying to push RTC into greater losses and render it defunct. While there were over 2,000 hired buses, the government took a decision to hire another 900 buses. Mr. Ravindranath Reddy said that besides trying to run the corporation into the ground, the Telugu Desam government was also trying to do away with the valuable properties of the corporation.
YSRC leader Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy had already announced that the moment the party came to power, APSRTC would be merged with the State government and the RTC employees would get the benefits and enjoy the security of the State government employees, the MLA said.
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Former Minister K. Parthasaradhi said no effort was made to rein in the excesses of the contract carriers which were charging Rs. 1,000 per ticket from passengers going to and coming from Hyderabad during the festival season. Though the price of crude oil had fallen in the international market, the government continued the old price increasing taxes.
The TDP government was clearly trying to squeeze money out of the general public for the so-called development of the State. Former MLA Samineni Udayabhanu said that the price of petrol had slashed by Rs. 10 per litre and all neighbouring states, including Telangana, had passed on the benefit to the people.