Himachal Road Transport Corporation, also referred to as HRTC, is the state-owned road transport corporation of the state of Himachal Pradesh, India. HRTC provides bus services to towns and cities within Himachal Pradesh and the adjoining and nearby states of Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. HRTC is one of the first RTC’s in India to offer a facility for online booking of tickets for all types of buses.
History
The corporation was jointly founded by the Government of Punjab, Government of Himachal Pradesh and Railways as Mandi-Kullu Road Transport Corporation in 1958 to operate in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. The corporation was merged with Himachal Govt. Transport on 2 October 1974 and was renamed as Himachal Road Transport Corporation.
Supporting infrastructure
HRTC has its corporate office at Shimla and four divisional offices at Shimla, Mandi, Hamirpur and Dharamshala, each having integrated workshop. It has 29 depots each with a regional workshop. HRTC also owns 3 bus body building units along with 3 tyre pre-cure re-treading plants at Mandi, Parwanoo and Jassur. HRTC routinely upgrades driving skills of its staff and train new drivers at its Driver Training Institutes located at Jassur, Mandi, Taradevi, Hamirpur, Chamba, Sarkaghat and Kullu.
Operating Conditions
Other than regular services connecting Himachal to Chandigarh, Delhi and Haridwar; HRTC operates buses on some of the highest motorable roads in the world. These routes include Leh-Delhi, Shimla-Kaza, Kullu-Kaza, Manali – Reckongpeo and others. The Leh-Delhi routes operated by HRTC is 1203 km long and is the longest route by any RTC in India with a travel time of approx. 36 hours. The roads to Kaza are also termed as the world’s most treacherous roads.
