Although Telangana government claims to preserve Hyderabadi culture and heritage including development protection and promotion of Urdu but such announcements by the government are perhaps not reaching bureaucracy as a result the promises made by the government regarding protection of Hyderabadi culture and language remain only on paper.
After the bifurcation of state, Telangana state formed separate Road Transport Corporation. Surprisingly the letter ‘Z’ has been removed from the number plates of new buses.
When the seventh Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan, insisted way back in June 1932, that the new bus services in Hyderabad be named after his mother Zahra Begum, his ministers advised him against the idea. Nizam, who was very much attached to his mother, agreed to name the service as the Nizam State Rail & Road Transport Department (NSR), but insisted that at least the letter `Z’ be added to all number plates of buses in memory of his late mother. On 17th September 1948 when the Nizam handed over his dominion to the Indian Government, one of the agreements he reached with Indian Government was that every bus registration number of the R.T.D. should continue to include the letter “Z” and APSRTC adhered to this till bifurcation of the state.
Even before the bifurcation the officials of APSRTC had said ‘post-bifurcation, the `Z’ letter will be retained even in the new buses as per the agreement, which by the way, does not have an expiry date. K Padmakar, general secretary of APSRTC Employees Union had said “The Telangana state government is yet to notify the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TRSTC), so the agreement is technically applicable to both the functionally divided corporations. The new TSRTC executive director, (engineering) M Ravindra, also had confirmed that the `Z’ series had been retained and will continue to remain embossed on number.
Despite all these assurances TRTC has removed letter ‘Z’ from the registration of new buses which is sheer violation of Nizam’s agreement.
Siasat news