Amaravati-Vijayawada: The APSRTC-Guntur region created a record by shifting 40,16,648 people during Krishna Pushkaralu from August 12 to 23. APSRTC Guntur regional manager, G. Srihari said that during 2004 Krishna Pushkaralu, 10,15,812 people travelled in APSRTC buses but now, Guntur region created a new record by transporting 40,16,648 people in the buses. He said that the highest number of bus trips of 15,640 were operated from Amaravati to Guntur and as many as 6,28,648 people travelled in those buses which also is a new record. Mr. Shrihari said 46,064 free bus services were operated in which 16,93,274 people travelled.
He said APSRTC operated bus services every minute during peak times and according to the rush. He added that as many as 1,12,139 trips were operated by the APSRTC from August 12-23 and thanked the public for using their services. The RTC earned an income more than Rs 35 crore in the last 11 days through special buses of Pushkaralu. The corporation has operated more than 2,700 buses per day including one thousand free services. Though the Corporation expected additional revenue during the 12 days as Rs 50 crore, but it realized about Rs 35 crore.
“We have used a successful formula, we put 400 vehicles separately as contingency vehicles to utilise at the emergency situations which yielded good results,” observed Mr. Jaya Rao, executive director, (Operations), APSRTC. He further said that the corporation transported more pilgrims in the Krishna Pushkaralu when compared with the Godavari Pushkaralu-2015. He further explained that as the Corporation operated thousand free services to transport the pilgrims, it did not get the revenue from these services. Mr Jaya Rao stated that they have transported more than 70 lakh pilgrims in Vijayawada through the free services where as it was about 60 lakh in Rajahmundry last year.
