High Court Rules Privatize Of Bus Routes As Legal

In a huge relief to the Telangana government, a division bench of the High Court on Friday dismissed the PIL filed by Vice-President of Telangana Jana Samithi P L Vishweshwar Rao against the privatization of TSRTC bus routes.

Rao had challenged the decision of the State cabinet to privatize 5,100 routes of the TSRTC.

The bench said that the State government had the power to give permissions to private bus operators under Section 102 of the Motor Vehicles Act 1988.

The bench also observed that the cabinet had taken the decision when the entire public transport system had come to a grinding halt and at a time when the people were reeling under lack of public transport due to the indefinite strike by the RTC employees.

The ruling today gives the green signal to the government to go ahead with privatizing bus routes in the State.

The KCR government is now expected to ask officials to privatize all 5,100 routes as per cabinet decision.

The government had recently given orders to privatize some 1,250 routes.