President of KSRTC Staff and Workers Federation H.V. Anantha Subba Rrao has said that instead of unnecessarily spending crores on establishment costs through four State road transport corporations, the government should merge them and save public money.
Addressing presspersons here on Saturday, Mr. Rao said over two decades ago the State government carved out four transport corporations out of the existing one corporation, and during this period the decision had only resulted in increasing more establishment cost and cumulative loss.
“From around ₹300 crore from a single transport corporation, the cumulative loss had now mounted to ₹2,317 crore from the four transport corporations. With the creation of new transport corporations, additional posts were created including those of managing directors, chairpersons and others, and money was spent on regional offices. When everything could be done through a single corporation, best solution was to merge the corporations,” he said.
Mr. Rao alleged that the State government was forcing the employees of the State road transport corporations to take the path of agitation by being apathetic towards their demands.
He said that despite its own directions on full payment to workers during the pandemic period, the employees of the State transport corporations were not being paid properly and allowances, incentives and other facilities were being cut.
“Our other main demand is that as the transport corporations are not meant for making profit and are for serving the people, the government should pay the salary grants to these corporations. Initially, the government paid full salaries to employees and now only 70% was being paid till September,” he said.
He alleged that as the government had only paid 70% and asked the transport corporations to mobilise funds for the remaining 30%, the officials were finding new methods to deprive employees of their rightful wages and some were being forced to go on leave. Because of non-availability of funds, the transport corporations were unable to pay even the Provident Fund contributions and gratuity dues, he said.
“We have submitted our list of demands repeatedly and sought appointment to meet the Minister. However, the government is not ready to even listen to us. We are being forced to go for strike and we will go ahead with it, if our demands are not heard,” he said.
General strike
General Secretary of the federation D.A. Vijaya Bhaskar said the present government was trying to snub the trade unions and the voice of the farmers being raised for their rightful demands. The Joint Committee of Trade Unions had given a call for national strike on November 26 to condemn the anti-labour and anti-farmer policies of the Centre and preparations were on, he said.