Bus stations will be developed on lines of Gujarat: Varla Ramaiah

Vijayawada: APSRTC Chairman Varla Ramaiah, who went to Gujarat to study the working of state road transport corporation there, announced here on Saturday that Vijayawada, Tirupati and Vizag bus stations would be developed on the lines of Vadodara bus station in Gujarat.

Referring to Vadodara bus station, the chairman said the bus stations would be developed into a multi-entertainment centre with shopping malls, seven-screen multiplex and a good food court with cuisines of all varieties. “Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu told me to transform the ambience in bus stations and make them compete with airports,” Ramaiah said.

He said the bus stations at Vijayawada, Tirupati and Visakhapatnam would be developed utilising the available vacant sites by actively involving the developers under private-public partnership. Similarly, all our bus stations could be developed on the same lines to come out of losses. He appealed to developers to cooperate with RTC in developing bus stations. Ramaiah said that he met the officials of Gujarat RTC and the vice-chairman and managing director Sonal Mishra who said that in spite of efforts, the Gujarat RTC is yet to come out of red.

When pointed out if the Gujarat experiment could not solve the problem of incurring losses, why should we follow their model, the chairman said,”Let’s be optimistic.” Referring to illegal plying of private buses, he appealed to people not to travel in private services which are not safe and poor in condition. “If people traveled in RTC buses, the state would get benefited,” he said.