Telangana will pay the employees of state road transport corporation for the period when they had gone on a strike last year. The state finance department on Wednesday issued orders to release Rs 235 crore towards payment of salaries of employees of Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) for a 56-day period.
Around 48,000-odd RTC employees were sacked from their jobs in October and November last year and taken back into service after 55 days.
“The release of salaries to the RTC employees for their strike period has been made in accordance with the promise made by chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao at the time of withdrawal of their strike,” the spokesman said.
A senior official in Bus Bhavan, the state headquarters of the RTC, said the salaries would be paid in lieu of the earned leave accrued to the employees without affecting their increments. “The strike period will, therefore, be considered as utilisation of earned leaves,” he said.
The government has also allocated Rs 1,000 crore for RTC in the latest budget, indicating that it is going to rescue the organisation from the losses. The RTC officials said the corporation is returning to normalcy with the services getting streamlined and the revenues of the corporation are showing gradual increase due to revision of bus fares recently.
The strike by 48,000 employees, under the banner of Joint Action Committee (JAC) of Telangana RTC workers’ unions, demanding among other things upward revision of their wages and merger of RTC with the state government paralysed public transport in the state, had caused a lot of inconvenience to commuters.
With the JAC adopting a tough stand, the chief minister announced the termination of all the employees from service and said there was no question of holding talks with the employees’ unions. At one stage, he even declared partial privatisation of RTC and his government called for tenders for privatisation of RTC routes.
The strike continued for a long period, during which as many as four RTC employees committed suicide and at least half a dozen workers died of heart attack. The state high court also refused to intervene in the administrative decisions of the government and appealed to both sides to resolve the issue.
Finally, the frustrated employees came forward to withdraw their agitation and join the duties unconditionally. But the RTC management refused to take them back into service. After keeping them on tenterhooks, KCR asked them to return to their duties on the condition that they would not take up strikes in future again.