Telangana Cabinet decides to merge TSRTC with Government

Telangana Cabinet also decided to present a Bill in the next Assembly session which will be commencing on Thursday

Hyderabad: In a move that will benefit over 43,000 employees, the State government has decided to strengthen and merge the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) with the government.

A decision to this effect was taken by the State cabinet, which met here on Monday. After the marathon meeting, it was also decided by the government to present a Bill in the next Assembly session, which will be commencing on Thursday. Soon after the Bill is approved, all 43,373 TSRTC employees would be considered government employees. They will be entitled for all the benefits as being extended to government employees in other departments.

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MAUD Minister KT Rama Rao said the decision was to save TSRTC and to strengthen the public transport system. To prepare the guidelines for merger of TSRTC into the government, a sub-committee involving authorities was set up. This would be led by Finance Secretary K Ramakrishna Rao and would include the Transport and Roads and Buildings Secretary, GAD Secretary and Labour department Secretary as members, he said. The committee would submit a comprehensive report on the merger to the State government at the earliest.

“This has been a long-pending demand of TSRTC employees and they had also staged protests asking to be recognized as government employees,” Rama Rao said, adding that it was as a social obligation that the government took the decision. Transport Minister P Ajay Kumar has been instructed to initiate measures for presenting the Bill, he added.

The RTC in Telangana was first established as NSR-RTD (Nizam State Rail & Road Transport Department), a wing of Nizam State Railway in the erstwhile Hyderabad State, in 1932, with 27 buses and 166 employees. Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) was established on January 11, 1958 in pursuance of the Road Transport Corporations Act 1950. After bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, two separate administrative units of RTC in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana commenced operations from June 3, 2015.

Consequently, the Telangana Government established TSRTC on April 27, 2016, under the Road Transport Corporation Act, 1950. Now, TSRTC has a fleet of 9,384 buses and 43,373 employees as on April 2022. There are 364 bus stations in the State and buses are operated from 98 depots covering 11 regions.