Solution to the contentious issue of asset distribution between the State Road Transport Corporations of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana continued to elude even as the Corporation Board members met for the first time in three years in Vijayawada on Thursday after the bifurcation.
It’s three years since the State was bifurcated but a full-fledged division of the two RTCs is yet to happen. The members of the joint governing Board of the RTC met in the Pandit Nehru Bus Station in Vijayawada.
The meeting was attended by seven Board Directors from Andhra Pradesh, five from Telangana and two members from the Central government.
All eyes were on the meeting which was to take up the most sensitive issue between the employees — the asset distribution.
“We could resolve two issues. Finalisation of the pending accounts and distribution of the RTC personnel between the two States has been addressed. However, the main issue of distribution of assets and liabilities could not be taken up as they [Telangana RTC officials] said they did not get time to go through the issue in detail. They have sought two weeks’ time and so the Board will meet on September 15 again to thrash out a solution to the issue,” said M. Malakondaiah, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of the APSRTC.
The RTC functioned as a single entity for 14 months. Accounts pertaining to this period had to be adjusted and a decision had been arrived at in the meeting. Both sides had also agreed to consider transfers of employees whose spouses were working in the other State.
The RTC employees of Telangana made it clear that AP had no right on properties located in Telangana while their counterparts here were agitated over the issue.
They contend that the 14 assets which jointly belong to them, including the prime properties like Bus Bhavan, bus body building unit in Miyapur and the hospital in Tarnaka must be divided in the 52:48 ratio.
‘Government should compensate’
The APSRTC Employees Union, meanwhile, has been vocal about its stand on asset distribution. Leaders insist that since the Centre went ahead with the division of the State despite repeated pleas and the State government allowed it to happen, the two must now compensate the accumulated losses. “In the absence of assistance, APSRTC will incur losses to the tune of ₹1,500 crore,” warned P. Damodar Rao, additional general secretary of the Corporation’s Employees’ Union.