Donita Jose By

Express News Service

HYDERABAD: The RTC bus count in Greater Hyderabad zone is significantly lower compared to other metropolitan cities in the South like Bengaluru and Chennai. According to TSRTC data, the corporation has a fleet of only 3,500 buses in the GHMC limits when compared to Bengaluru and Chennai where the number of buses are roughly 6,500 and 3,900 respectively as per their official website.

This indicates Hyderabad’s public transport is least in strength despite being a leading metropolitan city with a fast-growing population. As per the 2011 Census, while Chennai and Bengaluru had a population of 86 and 84 lakhs respectively, Hyderabad had a population of 69 lakhs.

Experts opine that the number of buses in the GHMC zone is inadequate even one assumes the population to be close to 69 lakhs as it was in 2011. “As per certain guidelines on urban transportation network that the MoUD released, any city’s public transport service can be graded based on the number of buses they ply for their population,” SR Chaitanya a researcher on public transport, said.

As per these ratings, the Service Level Benchmarks of Urban Transport, there must be at least 60% public transport for every 1 lakh population in Level 1 city. In reality, however, Hyderabad has Level 3 service, with only 20-40 buses per 1 lakh population.

The officials of the corporation also agree to this fact, stating that the city could achieve a good connectivity of public transport only if 3,000 more buses are added to the fleet in this span of 5 years. At present, while the older areas of GHMC have good connectivity, with more buses operating in the area, newer areas added in the corporation like Serilingampally, Financial District and several other residential hubs in East, North and South zones are severely under-connected.

However, it is also a known fact that the TSRTC is severely fund crunched. At present, the government gives loans to RTC to purchase buses, and an RTI query reveals that in 2018 financial year, merely Rs 35 crore was released, against Rs 140 crore sought by the RTC for purchasing buses.