The Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) plans to use ‘Pradham’, a new app developed to facilitate cashless transactions in the corporation buses.
According to a statement issued by the corporation, the app will facilitate social distancing and other COVID-19 guidelines and it will be implemented from August 1. After that, it will be replicated zone-wise within three months.
For the first time, the public transport giant plans to bring ‘Palle Velugu’ buses also in the realm of online services.
From June, the APSRTC has been running buses without conductors to avoid the risk of the latter becoming ‘super spreaders’ of the virus. In terms of revenue, the corporation has been incurring losses due to reduced number of seats to maintain social distancing but it has been operating buses to cater to the transport needs of the common man.
The corporation officials have claimed good response to their online ticketing services. From June 25 to July 1, the APSRTC sold 3.7 lakh tickets in online mode, against 25,000 tickets by Karnataka and 9,000 by the neighbouring Telangana.
