The Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) on Tuesday rolled out a fleet of environment-friendly electric non-AC buses.
Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, along with Transport Minister Ponnam Prabhakar and Roads and Buildings Minister Komatireddy Venkat Reddy, flagged off 22 electric Green Metro buses at the Ambedkar statue near the Secretariat.
These buses will be operated in Hyderabad.
Under the Mahalakshmi scheme, women can travel for free in these buses.
These e-buses, which are 12 metres long, have zero emissions. Officials said the buses with 35 passenger capacity can be operated for 225 km with a single charge. It can be charged in 3 to 4 hours. The bus also has a cell phone charging facility.
According to officials, the TSRTC is daily transporting 47.10 lakh passengers by operating 9,067 buses covering 32.33 lakh km.
The TSRTC has been operating 40 AC e-buses from various locations in Hyderabad to the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Shamshabad since March 2019. A total of 25 Green Metro Luxury AC e-buses have been operating from September 2023 on the airport and IT corridor routes.
The second lot of 25 vehicles are ready for operation and the remaining 450 buses will be made operational by August 2024, they said.
The TSRTC aims to launch 1,050 e-buses in a phased manner from 2023-24 to 2024-25 to provide pollution-free e-mobility in the state.
Deputy CM Vikramarka said Telangana is proud of the TSRTC and wishes that it become the top public sector organisation in the country. He claimed that the Congress government is making efforts to ensure that the TSRTC, which is running into losses, starts making profits.
He mentioned that under the previous government, the TSRTC was struggling to pay salaries to its employees as the organisation was not receiving due funds from the government. He recalled that their employees were worried that the TSRTC may be privatised and its assets may be sold.
The Deputy CM alleged that the previous government also tried to crush the strike by employees to protect the TSRTC. He said within 90 days of coming to power, Congress had brought new energy into the TSRTC by introducing new buses, and 100 new buses were flagged off
He pointed out that in Telangana, the TSRTC and Singareni Collieries provide employment to one lakh people. There are 45,000 employees in the public sector firm Singareni while the TSRTC employs 44,000 people.
“It’s the responsibility of this government to protect both Singareni and RTC,” he said.