Owners of ‘hire buses’ in Tirupati region are a worried lot after the State government announced the merger of the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) into its fold.
There are almost 2,800 buses running across the State on a hire basis to the APSRTC, and of these buses, close to a tenth are operating in Tirupati region alone, it is learnt.
Shaken by the decision of the State government to merge APSRTC into its fold, the private bus operators from all the thirteen districts of the State converged at a meeting here on Tuesday to chalk out their future course of action and to press for their demands with the State government.
At the meeting, it was decided to elect Venkateswara Reddy from Vijayawada as the State president, while the other office-bearers will be elected soon.
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The bus owners want the present system to continue, with the private services running in tandem with the APSRTC buses.
Like in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, the owners want their buses to be allowed into RTC bus stations on payment of the required charges.
“We want the present 75:25 ratio for APSRTC to hire buses to be tweaked to raise their stake by 10%. Since we are in the field for two decades, we cannot be unilaterally eliminated from the system. The government should consider involving us in the process,” Chittoor district secretary G. Chandrasekhar Naidu told The Hindu .
Another demand from the private bus operators’ side is to continue the present tendering system, instead of the online tender system proposed by the State government, apparently to keep the existing players firmly in the saddle.
