Private bus operators in Telangana and Andhra lashed out against the state government's 'ban' on some of their vehicles, and called it an act of 'revenge', due to political pressure from Vijayawada MP Kesineni Srinivas.
Private AP State Contract Carriage Bus Owners' Association vice-president M Sunil Kumar Reddy addressed a press conference on Saturday, and said that around 900 bus permits had been cancelled in the state, "due to pressure from two MPs.”
It is also important to note that Reddy is also the owner of Orange Travels, a popular bus operator in the southern states.
Reddy also stated that the Andhra government still collected inter-state tax even if the vehicle's registration was done in Arunachal Pradesh.
“We are paying close to Rs 1.35 lakh as quarterly inter-state tax. When the government knew that our buses are registered in other states, why did they collect the tax from us all these years? Only to exact revenge on us, Nani brought pressure on the officials of Arunachal Pradesh to cancel their bus permits," the Times of India quoted him as saying.
The TOI report also quotes another travels owner saying, “Nani is the father of irregularities and after closing his business, he is after us."
Last week, the Arunachal Pradesh government cancelled the permit of all buses that were registered with them, but not operating in their state.
This move directly affected around 900 buses that operated in the Telugu states, but registered in Arunachal Pradesh, as it was cheaper.
An investigation on this began around two months ago, after Vijayawada MP Kesineni Srinivas, also known as Nani, closed down the offices of Kesineni Travels, one of south India's largest private travel agencies.
Stating that many in the Andhra Pradesh Road Transport Authority (RTA) were corrupt, the MP downed the shutters in 'protest' of officials keeping mum on illegal registrations and issuance of fake fitness certificates.
On Saturday, the operators demanded that the Andhra government should let them run their fleet in the state.
Sunil Reddy also claimed that there was no law that a bus registered in one state could not operate in another, as long as it paid taxes to the state in which it operated.
He also claimed that the move would leave 7,000 people jobless and cause a revenue loss worth Rs 48.68 crore in Telangana and Andhra.