Stir Against RTC Fare Hike On Oct 26: YSR Congress

In protest against the APSRTC bus fare hike, the YSR Congress Party has decided to launch a stir at all of the bus depots in all the 13 districts of the State on October 26.

The Party's official spokesman Ambati Rambabu said that Party chief Y S Jaganmohan Reddy had given a call to launch State-level protests demanding a rollback of the fare, and that the Party would conduct massive protests at all bus depots on the 26th if the government failed to budge by a day before.

Rambabu flayed Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu for further burdening the common man in the name bus fare hike. He also expressed surprise over the decision to hike the bus fares given that crude oil rates across the world had came down drastically.

Rambabu also lashed out at the Chief Minister for spending hundreds of crores of money on the Amaravathi foundation-laying program. On one hand Naidu was splurging money on unproductive expenses, and on the other hand he was burdening the common man, Rambabu lamented. And the people of the State were disappointed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not even announce Special Status for the State despite all of the hype and fanfare, he said.

He alleged that the bus charge hike decision was also against the TDP's manifesto, and was aimed at benefiting private operators, who were the benamis of Naidu and other leaders. Since private operators' charges would end up looking relatively lesser now, people would throng their vehicles instead of the RTC buses which were already incurring losses due to the inefficiency of the Naidu government, he charged.