Parties equally to blame for RTC fare hike: Lok Satta

Political parties in the State should share the responsibility with the State Government and the RTC for the hefty increase in fares, said the Lok Satta Party here today.

Talking to the media, party Vice President Y. D. Rama Rao, General Secretary Katari Srinivasa Rao and Secretary Ravi Maruth pointed out that the parties which had indulged in competitive damage to and destruction of buses and disruption of services in the name of rasta rokos and bandhs and forced the hike in fares were indulging in hypocrisy by launching a movement for a rollback of the fares. The parties should realize at least now that it is the common man that has to pay a price ultimately for the destruction indulged in by parties. Political parties should come up with alternative forms of protest to bandhs and rasta rooks.

The Lok Satta leaders underlined that by raising the fares abnormally, the RTC was unwittingly driving the people to switch from public to private transport. Proliferation of private vehicles would merely worsen the already chaotic and clogged transport system in urban areas.

That the RTC Managing Director reportedly decided on hiking fares without taking the Transport Minister and the Chief Minister into confidence mirrored the chaos that had overtaken administration, said the Lok Satta leaders.

The Lok Satta leaders wanted the RTC to withdraw the fare hike and focus on augmenting its revenue by focusing on alternative sources like plugging leakages in cargo and parcel transport.

The Lok Satta Party leaders also took at a dig at parties which vied with one another in fomenting hatred among people on the basis of religion, region, caste and language and turned a blind eye to aspects like education ahd health care which had a great bearing on people’s lives. That students in only 261 of the total 64,860 primary and upper primary schools in Andhra Pradesh are in a position to read and write flawlessly underlined the sorry state of affairs. According to a Rajiv Education Mission study, there are as many as 14 districts with less than 10 good schools. Successive Governments’ criminal negligence accounts for the deterioration in educational standards.