Decades of wait for TSRTC depot at Peddapalli to end

Peddapalli: The TSRTC authorities are planning to establish an RTC depot in Peddapelli, a rapidly developing industrial district.

Earlier, attempts to set up a bus depot at Peddapalli were thwarted due to various technical reasons. Responding to a question by MLA Manohar Reddy in Assembly recently Transport Minister Puvvada Ajay Kumar answered that setting up the bus depot at the district headquarters was inevitable.

All mandal centres and villages are well connected by road to Peddapalli district headquarters. Lack of better transport accommodation has become a major problem. People of the district are more dependent on private vehicles than RTC buses.

There is a situation where two buses have to be changed by people to reach many villages in the district. There is no other alternative except setting up a depot to centralise transport services at Peddapalli, which has become a district from a divisional centre.

All mandal headquarters are within minimum 15 kilometers and maximum of 30 kilometers from the district headquarters while there is no direct bus facility to the four mandal centers in the district.

Buses belonging to Godavarikhani, Manthani, Karimnagar, Jagtial and Huzurabad depots are plying between various mandal centres to the district centre. There is no direct bus plying from Muttaram to Peddapalli within Manthani depot. But there is a bus service to Jammikunta via Muttaram and Kalvasrirampur. Karimnagar depot buses are going directly from Odela and Eligedu mandal centres.

In the past, efforts were made to set up a bus depot in Peddapalli. But the place identified for the purpose was in dispute. Attempts were made to set up a depot at a site in the Kori area of the then old bus stand (present Jenda Centre).

of the leaders who were eyeing the place blocked the establishment of the depot. Nizam Nawab's guest house used to be in this Kori area where previously RDO office was set up. However, the establishment of the depot was disrupted when some people claimed that the valuable land was theirs by using errors in the revenue records.

On the other hand, the bus depot was shifted to Godavarikhani as the SCCL gave free space to set up the depot. In 2010, efforts were made to set up a depot once again. A government site in Rangampalli was selected. As the bus stand is far away on the other side of the railway track, the RTC officials took a step back to set up a depot at that place.

As the buses are run from Karimnagar center, the people of those mandals have to depend on private vehicles to reach Peddapalli. The Minister's willingness to set up a depot at Peddpalli and RTC MD Sajjanar's efforts to streamline RTC brings joy to the residents of the district.

In these circumstances, it should be ensured that the choice of place for setting up the depot is not a problem. There is a need for public representatives and political leaders to intervene to select one of the vacant lands in the MPDO office near the current bus stand where there is five acres government land was seized by the revenue officials from the ITI ground.

The land of the Endowments Department on Station Road and the DCMS warehouse opposite the bus stand are also suitable for setting up RTC depot. The chances of setting up a depot will be improved by moving the petrol station which is being built at the bus stand site to another place.