HYDERABAD: After receiving two months pending salaries ahead of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections, the employees of the state-owned Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) were hoping to receive timely salaries from December along with other pending arrears.
But to their disappointment, the corporation resorted to holding up the salaries for almost 10 days and other dues including the remaining Credit Cooperative Society (CCS) of Rs 700 crore. Ahead of the elections, the corporation released Rs 200 crore to the CCS account out of the total Rs 900 crore which was pending.
“Except for the month of November during GHMC elections, we are not getting our salaries on time. The management credited September’s salary on October 10 and the August month salary on September 9. And November’s salary was credited on December 10. We have also approached the corporation several times to at least release the CCS amount so that we can avail loans and other expenditures, but in vain,” said Mohammad Mateen (name changed) who has been working as a TSRTC driver for the past eight years.
The employees have attributed the current situation to the delay in appointing a full-time managing director (MD) for TSRTC, which has been pending for over two years now. Although the government has made a stop-gap arrangement by making the principal secretary of roads and buildings department as the MD, employees have said that a full-time MD was needed to take certain policy decisions and resolve the pending issues which will eventually save TSRTC from its financial crisis.
“Usually, the MD of TSRTC is also given the post of vice-chairman. For instance, although the inter-state agreement was signed by Telangana and AP to resume bus services between the states, there is a shortage of at least 500 new buses. The buses we have are not in good condition, which is a huge drawback because passengers will not prefer to travel on our buses. The decision to bring in new buses is also pending because there is no full-time MD,” said Thomas Reddy of TSRTC employees’ union.
As per the MoU between both the states, TSRTC will operate across 1,61,258 km in AP with 826 buses and APSRTC will operate across 1,60,999 km with 638 buses in Telangana. “Appointing a full-time MD and a board which includes chairman and other senior officials will help keep the corporation solvent and provide hassle-free service to the passengers,” Reddy added.
Earlier this month, transport minister Puvvada Ajay Kumar said that the chief minister is supporting TSRTC in every possible way through budgetary allocation, release of funds, etc. “The revenue of TSRTC is increasing steadily to pre-Covid levels because of the hard work of employees, supervisors and officers of TSRTC. The seat occupancy ratio has now increased to 63%,” he said.