Telangana taxi drivers plan 1-day stir on May 20

The Association is also asking the Telangana government to rationalise road tax on the basis of 10 districts instead of the previous 23 districts. Operators plan to park their cabs and buses at RTA offices on the day of protest. TSCBOA president Nizam-uddin said the operators would try to meet CMs Naidu and KCR.

Chandrashekar Rao (Telangana) to request them to resolve the issue. If they fail to act then the Association would seek Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan's intervention. If operators fail to get justice from the authorities then they would go on a one-day strike on May 20.

Addressing the TSCBOA meeting, Nizamuddin strongly condemned the AP Government for not reacting to the representations made by bus operators demanding withdrawal of the Border Tax on contract carriage vehicles. He said that Telangana operators were facing difficulties in paying Border Tax of Rs 330 per seat. "The operators are neither able to pay the Border Tax nor willing to transfer the burden on passengers," he said.

The operators asked AP Government to act wisely as this will directly impact tourism, hotel, food and other related industries. "As a result, the AP Government will lose heavily on VAT and other taxes. The Telangana CM should rationalise the Road Tax on bus operators. As per the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, all assets were divided in the ratio of 52:48 between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

But Telangana became a major beneficiary in revenues from Motor Vehicle Tax. In the financial year, 2013-14, the revenues of united AP were Rs 3,335.18 Crore. After bifurcation, in 10 months (from June 2014 - March 2015), the total revenues for AP and Telangana were Rs 3,025 Crore. Of this, Telangana earned Rs 2,226 crore or 73 per cent of revenues. While 48 per cent of Rs 3025 Crore should have been Rs 1452 Crore, the Telangana Government enjoyed three-fourth of revenues. But this advantage was not passed on to the travel industry," he added.