As TGSRTC bus travel turns dearer, passengers switch to other services
The Telangana State Road Transport Corporation’s (TGSRTC) inter-state services, especially on the Hyderabad–Bengaluru stretch, have been among the highest-earning routes for the Corporation, with a large number of passengers, particularly tech professionals, frequently travelling on these buses. However, due to the comparatively high fares charged by TGSRTC and the recent reduction in bus fares by the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation, many passengers travelling to Bengaluru have begun switching to the neighbouring State’s bus services.
On these routes the occupancy ratio would be 100 per cent and even more during the weekends. The Corporation used to charge additional to the existing fare during the weekend given the huge demand from the passengers, but the burden of high fares forced the passengers to travel in other state bus services.
However, ever since the Corporation affected the price hike the occupancy ratio has drastically fallen in the TGSRTC AC bus services. According to sources, on an average everyday only 10 to 15 passengers were travelling in the A/c buses. “The passengers are coming and enquiring about the fares but not travelling in the buses,” said a conductor who did not want to be quoted. The ticket price of AC buses in TGSRTC for Hyderabad – Bengaluru route is between Rs 1,200 and Rs 1,600 whereas the KSRTC charges around Rs 1,050 and Rs 1,250.
It had been observed that with passengers not preferring the TGSRTC services, the KSRTC are taking advantage of this and operating additional special buses. The KSRTC operates over a dozen of special buses to clear the rush of passengers in their buses. Vamshi, a regular commuter to Hyderabad – Bengaluru route, said, “KSRTC Airavat Club Class services charge Rs 1,050, and KSRTC Ambari Dream AC Rs 1,300. Whereas, the TGSRTC charges 1,600 and Super Luxury charges Rs 1,020. With this high price burden, I switched to another state bus service,” he added. We passengers urged the Telangana Corporation to reduce the prices.” The union leader said that the state corporation had imposed various cess and additional cess for long-distance passengers.
“If the officials do not act in time, all the passengers would shift to other operators leading to further losses.
