People of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh will continue to be deprived of bus services between both the states for now. The impasses over resumption of interstate bus services between Andhra and Telangana post-Covid19 lock-down continues to be unresolved. The hope of an agreement on resuming buses was dashed with the Telangana government allegedly cancelling a meeting of the Transport Ministers of the two states on September 14.
The Telangana government abruptly cancelled a meeting of the Transport ministers, scheduled for Monday, AP government sources said.
However, a brief statement from Telangana Transport Minister P Ajay Kumar said there is no meeting being held between both the ministers on Monday. “No official meeting has been fixed with the AP Transport minister,” he said. The minister also said a minister-level meeting will be held only after some issues were resolved between the states.
Earlier, hundreds of buses used to ply between both the states every day. But after the outbreak of Covid-19, the bus services were stopped. Since then, Andhra and Telangana are at loggerheads over running interstate bus services despite complete opening of the state borders as part of Unlock 4.
The lucrative Vijayawada-Hyderabad sector has become the bone of contention between the two states. The Telangana Government is of the opinion that Andhra RTC is getting more profits and asking for more share in the bus routes. It is also demanding profitable routes to be assigned to it.
With the deadlock over resumption of bus services continuing due to the adamant attitude of both the governments, people of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are suffering. There is no sign in sight as to when the problems of these people are going to be solved.