Hyderabad: Transport minister P. Mahender Reddy on Wednesday said that the government would set up mini-theatres in 31 major RTC bus stations to overcome losses faced by the TSRTC, and tenders had been called for the purpose. He said 105 petrol pumps would be set up in bus stations.

Speaking in the Assembly during Question Hour, Mr Reddy said the GHMC had released Rs 336 crore to the RTC so far to compensate the losses suffered on account of city operations.

He said there was disparity in RTC bus services from the Telangana region to Seemandhra in undivided AP, which had come down significantly after the bifurcation of the state.

“More buses from Seemandhra used to ply to Telangana. The disparity was about 2.50 lakh kilometres. But now, it has come down to less than 80,000 kms. We will make inter-state agreement with AP soon to launch more bus services from TS to AP and bring down this gap further,” Mr Reddy added.

He said TRS government had taken several measures in the last three years to strengthen the RTC. “The government released Rs 50 crore to purchase of buses in 2016-17 and sanctioned Rs 140 crore in 2017-18,” he stated. The RTC has purchased 1,507 buses, the last of which will be deployed in three months, Mr Reddy stated. This year the RTC would procure 1,175 buses.