School and college managements as well as the state education department have not reacted to RTC officials’ requests to defer school and college timings. The reason for this is that they want to accommodate maximum number of students. The RTC is unable to handle the concentrated load of over five lakh students who are dependent on its services to reach schools and colleges located in the peripheral areas of the city.
The huge demand for buses connecting various parts of the city to over 100 colleges, is difficult to handle. The APSRTC plans to introduce about 500 new buses this year and dedicate about 60 to 70 of these to peripheral routes for the benefit of college students. However, officials say it is beyond the RTC’s capacity to meet the ever-increasing demand in such areas. This is the reason why the RTC had requested school and college authorities to defer timings. “We had approached not only school and college managements but also higher authorities in the education department, asking them to defer their timings by 10 to 15 minutes. It is very difficult for the RTC to carry thousands of students to these far-flung areas, especially during the 7 to 10 am time span. However, there has been no response to our requests,” said an official.
Meanwhile, as per estimates, at least 100 dedicated buses would be required to meet the requirement of thousands of students. Though it is not possible to dedicate buses exclusively for students, officials plan to introduce 60 to 70 general buses on peripheral routes. The deployment of these additional buses on distant routes like Moinabad to Chevella, beyond Kukatpally, Medchal, Patta-ncheru, Mehdipatnam to Moinabad are in the proc-ess of being chalked out.