TSRTC rides on road to growth in 2022

Thanks to unique initiatives, the corporation managed to reduce losses from Rs 1,036 crore in 2021 to Rs 395 crore

Hyderabad: It was a fruitful year for Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC), as it managed to generate good revenue from its various initiatives and services.

Thanks to its unique initiatives, the State-run transport corporation also managed to reduce the total loss from Rs 1, 036 crore in 2021 to around Rs 395 crore in the current financial year. It even managed to engage more closely with the public through its various social media awareness campaigns.

Till this March, the RTC authorities focussed on assessing the post-Covid movement of traffic, passenger needs, and expensive fuel, and framed strategies to improve traffic, revenue, and reduce cost.

Special emphasis was laid to establish contact with passengers through social media, refurbishing, and painting, of buses, developing IT infrastructure for quick decision-making, apart from improving hospital infrastructure for employee welfare.

New initiatives were rolled out in March in a systematic and precise manner so as not to cause inconvenience to passengers and avoid adverse publicity.

Steps to increase revenue

The corporation implemented the ‘100 days challenge’ and ‘Sravana Maasam challenge’ to increase revenue by motivating the staff.

The average per day traffic earnings increased from Rs 11.17 crore to Rs 14.34 crore between March and June 2022. The RTC achieved the highest traffic revenue during Sankranti, Rakhi, Dasara, and Diwali festivals.

This year, RTC also implemented ‘Prajala Vaddaku RTC’, a massive people connect programme in all districts in which officials visited villages to ascertain their travel needs. Rationalisation of routes and services in several regions led to the generation of additional revenue of Rs 25 crore.

Increasing fleet

In a major step, the procurement of 1,016 new buses including 16 AC sleeper buses, 630 super luxury and 370 deluxe and express buses was done at a total cost of Rs 350 crore.

The hiring of 21 non-AC sleeper and sleeper-cum-seater buses and 342 Express, Palle Velugu buses is in progress. As part of the facelift to buses, 657 Super Luxury and Rajadhani buses and 192 cargo buses were refurbished.

Measures adopted for cost reduction

The usage of degreasing agent ‘CVC Motokleen’ instead of diesel for cleaning bearings, units, etc and retail purchase of fuel instead of procuring from oil companies helped in avoiding excess cost on bulk purchases.

Revision of tyre norms was done to reduce the inventory of tyres and disposal of scrap vehicles and extension of tyre retreading facilities.

Enforcement drives

The corporation coordinated with the police and transport department to conduct checks on illegal vehicles, overloading, etc, on high-density, high-frequency routes.

Information Technology initiatives

Implementation of Static QR Code-based UPI payments for cashless transactions in a bus pass, reservation and logistics counters.

Implementation of Intelligent-Ticket Issue Machines (i-TIMs) in long-distance and airport buses to enable cashless transactions and seamless reservations. Bus on contract basis made online.