The marginal increase in the bus fares announced by the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) came into effect on Wednesday.
In a statement, Corporation’s Vice-Chairman and Managing Director M.T. Krishna Babu said the mounting losses on account of frequent diesel price hike had pushed the public sector giant into a debt trap. He said the corporation had revised the bus fares in 2015 and in these four years, diesel rates had increased from ₹49 to ₹70 a litre, putting an additional financial burden of ₹630 crore annually. Increase in rates of spare parts and increase in the employees’ salaries had added an additional burden of ₹650 crore. He said despite incurring revenue loss of around ₹1,280 crore, the Corporation had managed to increase its occupancy ratio from 73% to 79 %. He said in view of the difficult financial situation, it was decided to effect a marginal increase in the bus fares. In ordinary city buses, there would be no change in the charges for the first 11 stages (22 km). This would spare almost 86 % of the city bus passengers of any additional burden. In Palle Velugu buses, there is no increase in the first two stages (10 km). After that, passengers travelling for next 75 km would have to pay ₹5 more. In the long-distance AC buses, there is an increase of 5 % to 7.5 % while the AC sleeper bus has been spared the hike.
The following is the list of increased prices (per km):
Palle Velugu (10 paise), Express service (20 paise), Ultra Deluxe (20 paise), Super Luxury (20 paise), Indra AC (10 paise), Garuda AC (10 paise), Amaravati AC (10 paise) and Vennela sleeper (no hike).
