Chetan Bhawani

Ok we see people, farmers all committing suicide in Andhra Pradesh, due to financial crisis, debts that they can not pay back to the lenders. Government says it can’t help it much. Fine, you first try to solve he fights between yourselves then try to help the common people. But why are you worsening things in people’s lives by making them spend more for their normal daily life?
Now the government of Andhra Pradesh has hiked the fare of bus tickets, all of a sudden, and not by a small proportion! And they say its done to meet their financial crisis.. what a shocker to people who travel daily by buses.. Its been more than a couple years that I might have climbed a bus to travel short distances, so not sure what the fair is, but the comparison of the old and new prices says it all.

For ordinary or Palle Velugu bus services, the hike is eight paise a kilometre and for the higher end services – Volvo buses – the hike is 25 paise a km. For super luxury, the increase is 13 paise a kilometre, deluxe services 11 paise and express services 10 paise a km.

Now, the fare of a deluxe service from Hyderabad to Vijayawada (269 km) will be Rs. 162 (Rs. 132 earlier), super luxury service fare Rs. 190 (Rs. 155) and Volvo Rs. 337 (Rs. 270). For city services, the fare would be Rs. 5 upto four km and Rs.7 upto 10 km and so on. The fare for express buses will be Rs. 2 over ordinary services.

Government says they wanted to meet the financial crisis faced due to hike in the cost of diesel, spare parts, loss of revenue and damages due to widespread agitations. And this has increased the burden to 36%.

Things that are would worsen the situation for regular passengers -

• Minimum charges to travel in nearby places costs Rs. 5, from the price of Rs. 2 earlier.. sudden increase of 150% surely going to hit up every one who earn comparatively less and shell out the ticket cost from their pockets.
• Bus ticket from Hyderabad to Nizamabad was Rs. 100 earlier.. toll gate increased it a bit a few months back, and now APSRTC totaling it to Rs. 130. Such a big rise will hit the daily passengers, and now trains will be more used which charge Rs. 50 for the express train from Hyderabad to Nizamabad.

We can’t complaint about this, as the government has thrown out a big list of problems they are facing, but isn’t the government run to serve the people and solve their problem?
A small proportion in hike of bus fare would have been better.. but this decision right now is killing. They will know that when the number of passengers traveling would opt for local trains than buses, which have half the fare to travel the same distance.