Telangana alert! TSRTC to resume bus service to Karnataka, Maharashtra from Sep 28

Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) on Saturday said it would resume its bus service to neighbouring Karnataka and Maharashtra from September 28, though no such decision was taken with regard to Andhra Pradesh.

State-owned TSRTC's services to Bengaluru will remain suspended but other destinations like Raichur, Bidar and Gulbarga will be resumed.

Similarly, TSRTC will also run buses to Mumbai, Pune, Nanded, Nagpur, Chandrapur, and other destinations in Maharashtra.

The state transport buses from these states will also be allowed to operate in Telangana.

The deadlock between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh over the resumption of public trasport service continued as four rounds of talks between officials of the two states failed to resolve the impasse.

Telangana is insisting that APSRTC reduce its bus operations and operate on equal footing with TSRTC. The APSRTC operates buses on 2.5 lakh route km in Telangana, one lakh km more than the distance covered by TSRTC in Andhra Pradesh.

The bus services were suspended in March following nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

TSRTC resumed bus services in Telangana on May 19, following relaxations in lockdown norms.

However, city bus services in Hyderabad had remained suspended in view of the high COVID-19 cases. The city services were restored only a day ago. TSRTC resumed 25 per cent services from all 29 depots in Greater Hyderabad Zone.

TSRTC operates over 3,000 buses in the zone. Before COVID-19, these buses used to make 43,000 trips, transporting over 30 lakh passengers daily.