RTC tie-up put on hold over Telangana

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Hyderabad: Senior bureaucrat D. Lakshmi Parthasarathy’s comments on the state’s division in a note file relating to the inter-state transport permits have kicked up a row.
Lakshmi is the special chief secretary of the transport department. The issue pertains to an agreement between AP State Road Transport Corporation and its counterpart in Karnataka for introducing new inter-state services.
Officer’s decision takes all by surprise
Hyderabad: The Karnataka transport authorities sought AP’s permission to ply more buses on different routes in the state. It also proposed to make changes to the existing agreement between the two organisations.
 
The state transport department referred the matter to the APSRTC, which agreed to the plan, and suggested that it would run buses to the neighbouring state in corresponding numbers.
“The issue has been pending since last December and finally we reached the final stage of concluding agreements,” D. Lakshmi Parthasarathy, special chief secretary of the transport department, told this newspaper. Instead of giving the go ahead to signing the agreement, she referred the matter to the law department to ascertain whether such a move was proper in view of the state’s division.
The officer’s decision came as a surprise in administrative circles as there has been no official move by the Centre on the state’s division and current developments are of a political nature. Also the decision on Telangana is that of the Congress.
Transport minister and PCC president Botsa Satyanarayana was also unhappy over the bureaucrat’s comments. He raised the issue at an informal meeting held with the Chief Minister N.Kiran Kumar Reddy and his ministers at his camp office.
He was of the view that officials have to take decisions as per the existing rules and procedures and can’t avoid or postpone them.