If Telangana Rashtra Samithi president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has his way, the state-run Road Transport Corporation (RTC) is most likely to be privatised, at least partially, if not completely.
KCR dropped enough hints to that effect during the emergency high-level meeting conducted at Pragati Bhavan on Sunday evening.
While declaring the removal of 48,000-odd employees of RTC from service, KCR ordered that private bus operators should be amalgamated with the RTC to operate in a public-private partnership.
While asking the authorities to take 2,500 buses on lease, the chief minister ordered that permissions be granted to 4,114 private buses to operate as stage carriers.
“Negotiations are being held with private bus operators to bring them into the RTC. Hereafter, half of the RTC bus fleet would be private buses,” he said.
He pointed out that there were no RTCs in states like Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Manipur. And in other states like Bihar, Odisha, Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, they were very nominal.
“After Karnataka State, large number of buses are being run in Telangana State. When we are taking care so well, is there any need for them to go on strike?” the CM asked.
He said there were 1,22,58,433 private vehicles of different types in the State. All these vehicles are used to transport people.
“They are removing the transport problems to some extent. Professional skills of the RTC management should be utilised. Profits should also be made from the RTC cargo service. In this competitive world, think innovatively and turn RTC into a profit-making organisation,” KCR suggested.