Hyderabad: The Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC), which saw its daily revenue falling by over 70 per cent during the lockdown and soon after it, is now slowly making a comeback with a rise in patronage.
In the last one month, the corporation has seen significant growth in daily revenue in the city as well as across State with the overall occupancy registering a steady rise. The RTC is expecting to reach its target during Sankranti.
According to officials, TSRTC is recording daily revenue of Rs 10 crore, which is Rs 2 crore away from its usual revenue of Rs 12 crore. The corporation is also increasing the operations, depending on the response from passengers. When the TSRTC resumed bus services after the lockdown, the revenue was Rs 2 crore to Rs 5 crore a day.
“The TSRTC is getting revenue of nearly Rs 10 crore per day, while the cargo parcels and courier services are also earning around Rs 15 lakh. The New Year will bring the corporation back to normal and we are making all efforts to reach the revenue that we were earning before the lockdown,” a senior official said.
In the Greater Hyderabad Zone (GHZ), the TSRTC is making daily revenue of Rs 2 crore. “The RTC revenue in GHZ in November was Rs 1.25 crore a day. Before the lockdown, the overall revenue in the city was around Rs 3 crore a day. We hope the revenue will further improve in the coming days,” said V Venkateshwarlu, Executive Director (GHZ), TSRTC.
At present, the RTC is running around 1,500 buses in the GHZ which include city buses, sub-urban and mofussil services. The existing bus fleet, which is 50 per cent of the actual strength, can be augmented following the guidelines from the State government. Initially, when city buses were resumed on September 25, RTC was told to operate only 25 per cent and later, it was increased to 50 per cent.
RTC officials attributed the growth in daily revenue to an encouraging response from passengers, along with resumption of inter-state buses and improvement in the movement of buses. On the weekends, there was a good response to the inter-district services as passengers have started travelling in buses from their hometowns to Hyderabad, said an official.
As for Sankranti, special buses that are being operated to different parts of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are expected to rise the revenue further. Given the huge demand, RTC operates thousands of special buses during Dasara and Sankranti festivals every year.
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