Visakhapatnam: Strike by RTC employees that began on May 6 has led to irregular services and lack of general maintenance of the RTC buses in the city. The state government hired temporary drivers and conductors to continue the services, but those are far from being smooth.
 
Contractual conductors are not issuing tickets to the passengers as the ticket printing machines are with the permanent staffers. This has resulted in two same route buses charging different amount for the same destination. Gourab Bhowmik, an employee of Vizag Steel Plant, said he boarded a bus for RTC Complex from Kurmanpalem on Monday for which the conductor charged him Rs 25. While returning, he had to shell out Rs 30 for the same route, he added.
 
A contractual bus conductor I.R.S. Murthy said the newly hired bus drivers do not have experience of driving a bus in the city. Not just the drivers, the contractual conductors also do not have any experience in the field. Murthy, who used to work in VSP as a contractual labourer, started working as a conductor for 10 days for a higher per-day income.
 
A bus driver said that he signed in for the job because it was paying higher, but said that he received threats from some RTC workers for driving the bus. The driver said he made a complaint to the authorities in that regard, but the latter assured him that he would not be harmed in any way.