Commuters travelling in APSRTC buses, including those in the capital will now have to bear additional burden as the transport corporation has increased the fares by close to 10 per cent across the fleet with the new rates coming into effect from Tuesday midnight.
In city buses, the minimum fare in ordinary buses has been increased from Rs.5 to Rs.6 and Re.1 per every stage till 14 km distance. After 14 km of travel distance, the fare has been increased by Rs.2 per km.
Likewise, the fare of Garuda Plus has been increased from the existing Rs.1.50 per km to Rs.1.65 per km, Garuda fare has been increased from Rs.1.40 per km to Rs.1.55 per km, Indra from Rs.1.20 per km to Rs.1.32 per km, Super Luxury fare from Re. 0.92 per km to Rs.1.05 per km, Deluxe fare from Re. 0.80 to Re.0.89 per km, Express fare from Re. 0.72 per km to Re.0.79 per km and ‘Palle Velugu’ fare has been increased from Re.0.55 per km to Re.0.59 per km.
Authorities have exempted the fare hikes in Vennela service and the fare remains at Rs.2.30 per km.
Accordingly, the fare in a super luxury bus from Hyderabad to Vijayawada, which used to cost about Rs.253 will now cost Rs.283, the fare for same distance in an Indra bus has increased from Rs.323 to Rs.356, Garuda bus fare from Rs.377 to Rs.417.
To increase further
These fares would increase further depending on the number of toll tax gates and cess on a particular route.
Prices of monthly passes have also been increased by about Rs.50 across different categories. Accordingly, the ordinary pass, which was costing Rs.650 will now cost Rs.700, Express pass has been increased from Rs.750 to Rs.800 and Deluxe pass fare hiked from Rs.850 to Rs.900.
The APSRTC had last revised the fares in September 2012 and senior officials claim that operational costs had risen since then. The recent 60-day ‘Samaikyandhra’ agitation resulted in over Rs.745 crore loss.
In the last 14 months, diesel prices had also increased about five times and every time the diesel price was increased by Re.1, it resulted in an additional burden of nearly Rs.80 crore per year to the RTC, they explained.
“With the revised bus fares, we expect to generate about Rs.500 crore revenue per year and this will help us in covering losses to a certain extent,” an RTC official remarked.
