The Chief Minister, Mr N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, has approved a proposal of the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation to buy 6,000 new buses.
Mr Reddy has sanctioned Rs 200 crore and directed that Rs 100 crore be released.
The new buses will replace old ones and augment district and city services.
In another decision, he directed the AP State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) to go in for only a marginal hike in bus fares in spite of steep hike in the prices of diesel.
There will be no hike for the first 10 km. Up to the next 30 km (till 40 km), the hike is only Rs 2.00. This means that for 80 per cent of the passengers, the fare hike is only marginal.
According to a statement from the Chief Minister's Office, diesel prices were hiked three times in the recent years and has an impact of Rs 743.14 crore for RTC.
The APSRTC consumes about 60 crore litres of HSD oil annually. APSRTC carries 1.46 crore passengers a day and operates 83 lakh bus km everyday. It has 1,22,508 employees.
WORLD BANK
The Chief Minister today reviewed the AP Municipal Development Project — the World Bank (IBRD)-aided project.
The project's objective is to improve basic urban infrastructure services at urban local bodies and to enhance the State and local capacity to sustain the improvements. The project is to be implemented by July 31, 2015.
The $350-million (Rs 1,670 crore) project has World Bank financing of $300 million (Rs 1,432 crore), with the AP Government share of $19.4 million (Rs 93 crore) and urban local bodies share of $30.6 million (Rs 146 crore).