It is a race against time for RTC

The Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) will get about 300 new buses meeting BS-IV emission norms by March 31 so that they can be registered on or before that. The Union government decided to leapfrog BS-V emission norms.

While the APSRTC had intended to buy 1,000 buses of various types, and placed orders, with BS-VI emission norms coming into effect from April 1, the APSRTC would be required to wait for some more time to get the new engines with chassis conforming to BS-VI standards. Last year after the government came into power, it had proposed purchase of 1,000 buses, but fund crunch delayed the purchases. Now, there is a very little time for the APSRTC to get the chassis/engine of buses and build the body and get them registered prior to the March 31 deadline.

The Anantapur region with a fleet of 934 buses running on 352 routes, has got sanction for allotment of 63 new buses till March 2021-end. For the current financial year, it had sought 32 uses and of them only four have been sent, and another 35 have been sanctioned for 2020-21 fiscal year.

Sleeper services

RTC Anantapur Regional Manager Sumanth R Adoni told The Hindu that it currently runs one sleeper bus to Vijayawada from Anantapur and proposes to introduce one to Chennai via Tirupati. It has sanction to introduce one each from Tadipatri to Bengaluru and Hyderabad via Anantapur. Two A/C Indra Buses would be introduced from Tadipatri to Bengaluru and Anantapur to Tirupati. A Super Luxury bus is proposed between Anantapur and Bengaluru.

In addition, 67 buses are running from the Bengaluru Interstate Bus Terminal to various locations in the Anantapur region. The Bengaluru terminal in all runs 306 services to all locations in the State and is controlled by the Anantapur region. The region is also in the process of surveying feasibility of introducing A/C bus services from Anantapur to Bengaluru Airport.

Earnings, occupancy fall

The earning per kilometre of the Anantapur Region has fallen from 16% to 9% in the last one year and the fall is significant after January 1. The occupancy rate also has marginally fallen leading to increase in per passenger expenditure from₹42 to ₹43.97. The current earning of the region is ₹1.05 crore per day carrying 2.82 lakh passengers everyday travelling 3.5 lakh km.