Mobile toilets a big relief

TSRTC handing over old buses to MA&UD department for the purpose

Hyderabad: The Municipal Administration and Urban Development department’s move to set up mobile toilets in urban and rural areas across the State is yielding two benefits. On one side, citizens are making good use of the mobile toilets, while on the other, the move is helping the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) to dispose of its old and rickety buses faster, apart from generating some additional revenue for itself.

During the last three months, 67 old TSRTC buses, including 30 in the GHMC limits, have been fabricated into mobile toilets with many more likely to be put to the same use. Generally, TSRTC takes off the old buses, which have completed 12 lakh kilometres of operations in rural areas and 15 lakh km operations in GHMC limits, from service and the units of the vehicle are sold as scrap. This exercise aids TSRTC in generating about Rs 2 to Rs 3 lakh through sale of scrap from each bus.

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However, with the Municipal Administration and Urban Development department deciding to use slightly better buses, which still have considerable economic and operational service left in them, things are slowly getting better for the RTC. The State Corporation is handing over buses, which still can be operated for another 50,000 km or for a year, to the MA&UD department for converting them into mobile toilets. This is achieved mainly because a few drivers operate the vehicles well and get the repairs done early to ensure their longer operational life.

The move to hand over the old buses to MA&UD department is benefiting the TSRTC in two ways. One is that it is fetching good revenue as about Rs 4 lakh is paid for each bus, besides all the laborious process in clearing the old vehicles as scrap is avoided, a senior official from the TSRTC said.

Earlier, the TSRTC had to constitute a special committee to assess the condition of a bus and its spares, especially front axle, rear axle, engine, gear box etc., to fix an upset value for declaring it to be scrapped. This was followed with auction of the spares and bus body as scrap in terms of weight. All this process used to take months for the corporation.

Since the idea of converting the old buses into mobile toilets came to the fore, the old buses are being put to good use again as they are placed at different areas in a radius of about 15 km for the convenience of people, besides generating good revenue for the corporation, the official said.

 

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