TSRTC and APSRTC combined have not more than 23000 buses. Remove the ones serving Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam and Warangal cities, there are about 18000 buses doing intercity and village services of which 10,000 buses are of ordinary class which connect villages with nearest towns. Even after covering 70% of road network in Hyderabad city, Telangana State Road Transport Corporation’s Greater Hyderabad zone struggles with huge transit deserts. This network is served by a *whopping* 3500 buses.
Now imagine connectivity to all of the villages. If Hyderabad is struggling to have proper service with 3500 buses how are all of the numerous villages in Telugu states connected with 10,000 buses. According to APSRTC and TSRTC there are more than 1000 villages in telugu states that are still not connected. For a village to be considered connected, it is enough to have just one bus a day.
Gandikota, a popular tourist destination just 15 km from Jammalamadugu, gets just one bus every three hours and sunday service is not guaranteed. Gandikota is so close to the town yet so far from accessing services in the town. This is still a better example but there are villages that still get just one bus a day.
If connectivity is this bad in the plains, what about the villages and numerous thandas in the “agency” areas of Visakhapatnam and Vijayanagaram districts. Unlike the villages in the plains connecting these places is a challenge. Though APSRTC has been trying to connect these places with Midi buses operating out of Srungavarapukota depot, there are still villages that need to be connected.
Also, the quality of service has fell down over the last decade with no new buses inducted into the fleet. All of the buses scrapped because of their age have only been replaced by used saptagiri express buses from tirumala - tirupati. Finally, there is a refreshing change. APSRTC, with funds from SC ST Subplan has purchased 20 new midi buses for serving the far flung villages in “agency” area. Branded Telugu Velugu, these are the first entry level ordinary buses in APSRTC with a single front windshield. As with all the other buses, the buses have been fitted with on board GPS decimating information via PIS at bus stand and app.
The new buses will ply from Paderu and Sileru to Bakuru, Jolaput, Chintapalli and Gudem among other Villages. These are places that are already connected by at least one bus a day. With introduction of these new buses, we only hope there are more buses to Villages that are still left unconnected.
