The wait for people from neighbouring Telangana looking forward to restoration of public transport facility to return home may get longer.
The lockdown, necessitated by the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, brought to a halt buses operating between Andhra Pradesh and its neighbouring States. After a gap of over two months, the AP State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) gradually started operating, first the intra-State services and later focused on services to neighbouring States. It resumed services to Karnataka in a phased manner.
To resume services to Hyderabad, APSRTC officials held talks with their Telangana counterparts, in Vijayawada, putting forth their proposal to operate buses in four phases and to cover a distance of 70,000 km in the first phase.
Parity of distance
Parity of distance is an issue between the two States that is said to be causing a delay in operations. Sources said the Telangana officials are firm on parity of kilometres from the first phase of operations.
The APSRTC covers a distance of 2.6 lakh km in Telangana , while the latter plies its buses covering 1.6 lakh km in AP. For the APSRTC, it is a climbdown from 3.37 lakh km in 2014, while its Telangana counterpart increased the area of operation in the State from 94,000 km to 1.6 lakh km now.
Confident that the issue can be resolved without much ado, the APSRTC officials are waiting for the TSRTC to present their plan of operating buses in the first phase.
The second round of talks that was scheduled to be held at the head office of the TSRTC had to be put off after reports that some of the staff in the operations wing had tested positive for COVID-19.
“At the moment, their focus is on how to fight the virus that has crept into the department. The inter-State bus operations may take some more time,” said an official of the APSRTC.
If Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s proposed fresh lockdown is implemented, buses kept ready to ply between the two States may have to be confined to depots for a much longer time.
