Vijayawada: Transport minister Siddha Ragha Rao on Thursday said the APSRTC has incurred Rs 17 crore loss since demonetisation came into effect.

The minister launched e-PoS machines at the bus station here. Addressing the media, the minister said demonetisation had hit the transport business and to overcome the crisis, the RTC has introduced this system initially at Vijayawada and Guntur bus stations.

“At Vijayawada bus station, we have placed 30 e-PoS machines and in Guntur, there are 20 e-PoS machines.” RTC managing director M. Malakondaiah said they had entered into an agreement with the HDFC in Krishna and Guntur districts for e-PoS purpose and the Corporation Bank has come forward to arrange e-PoS machines in Srikakulam, Viziana-garam and Anantapur districts, and in the rest of districts in the state, the SBI will take care of the e-PoS activity.

The RTC MD also said this integration process with e-PoS machines in all the 423 bus stations across the state would be completed within 2-3 days. At present, the SBI has some 500 e-PoS machines with them and they are also looking into the integrating e-PoS machines with the ticket issuing machines.