The State government is firm on making the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) as the leading public transport entity in the country in the next three years, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has said.
Flagging off 100 new RTC buses here on Monday, coinciding with the Republic Day celebrations, Mr. Nadiu said: “It’s the responsibility of corporation to ensure proper maintenance of the buses and the government will assist the APSRTC in replacing old buses with new ones, wherever necessary,” he said, adding the RTC had initiated efforts to leverage technology for improving the operational efficiency.
Referring to the losses incurred by the corporation, he exhorted the officials to ensure optimum utilisation of the assets to create additional sources of income to tide over the accumulated losses.
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“It is the duty of employees to work hard to make the corporation a profit-making entity,” he said, underscoring the need for reliability to improve its operations or else passengers would look for other modes of transport.
There should not be any compromise on the quality and efficiency. In addition to 100 new buses pressed into service on Monday, plans were underway to add 700 more buses in February and March.
He complimented the corporation authorities for their initiative of deploying GPRS technology and surveillance cameras in the new buses and said that the government would take measures to establish a separate colony for the RTC staff.
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Mr. Naidu said the drivers were facing problems owing to the bad road conditions. “I will ask officials to visit the other States to conduct a detailed study on improving the road conditions,” he said.