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Hyderabad, June 10 (Press media of india): State BJP president Bandi Sanjay Kumar on Friday alleged that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao has made the lives of common people miserable by abnormally increasing various taxes, power tariffs and RTC bus fares.
Speaking to media persons after interacting with the passengers of RTC buses, drivers and conductors at Jubilee Bus station, Secunderabad, Sanjay said it appears KCR doesn’t want the poor and middle class people in the State to lead even normal life. “In the last few months, the KCR government has indiscriminately increased power tariffs, property tax, drinking water cess, Value Added Tax on fuel and now RTC bus fares,” he said.
Sanjay Kumar pointed out that it was for the first time that the RTC charges were hiked five times in a span of three years. “KCR was robbing the poor of their only way of transportation by abnormally increasing the bus fares in the name of diesel cess,” he said and demanded that the cess be revoked immediately. He also said after the TRS formed government for the second time, the TSRTC hiked the charges five times now – first, charges were hiked by 25% after the RTC strike ended in 2019. Then, a safety cess was imposed followed by a ‘round figure’ increase. The third was an increase in Palle Velugu bus charges and the fourth was a rise in bus pass rates, the Karimnagar BJP MP noted.
The BJP leader said while it only cost less than Rs 200 to travel from Hyderabad to Karimnagar by bus before 2018, now it costs over Rs 300. He sought to know why there was a need to slap the diesel cess on the public, given that the Centre has reduced the Excise duty on petrol and diesel reducing their prices by Rs 15 and Rs 17 respectively in six months. “The KCR government is levying a VAT of 35.2% on petrol, which is highest in the country, to earn Rs 30 per litre,” he stated, noting that while petrol costs Rs 94 in States like Punjab, it costs Rs 110 in Telangana.
Condemning the extreme VAT charges, Sanjay said KCR looted over Rs 65,000 crores in the name of VAT and on top of that, he is also burdening the poor with hike in RTC charges.
Sanjay also highlighted that the RTC employees are never paid their salaries on time, and even their two PRC dues and five DAs are pending. Despite the overcharging, KCR has made the RTC debt-ridden and leased out the valuable RTC property to TRS leaders and MLAs, he said.
He said the RTC also reduced the fleet of 10,000 buses to 6,000 and increased the private-run buses from 1,200 to 3,000, the Telangana BJP president said and called upon the party workers and the people to step up the movement to drive away the TRS from power. (PMI)
