10 buses start plying on city roads with recruitment of 35 conductors
With recruitment of 35 conductors, a few city buses have started plying on city roads, once again, while the old conductors have continued their strike. The management of Ludhiana City Bus Service Limited is expecting that more buses will start plying from the next week.
With recruitment of 35 conductors, a few city buses have started plying on city roads, once again, while the old conductors have continued their strike. The management of Ludhiana City Bus Service Limited is expecting that more buses will start plying from the next week.
City Bus Service manager Baljeet Singh said, “We have interviewed some candidates, who were interested to do the job of conductor. Of them 35 were selected. Now, with the new recruitment, we are running 10 city buses. More buses will be running shortly with the recruitment of more staff.”
The residents had to face inconvenience because the conductors of the City Bus Service had been on strike for the past three weeks.
In an ef fort to continue the service, the MC had also deployed ticket inspectors to perform the duty of conductors, but later on June 17, the city buses service came to a halt completely, as the MC decided not to deploy them in place of conductors.
MC had also incurred loss worth in lakhs due to the strike of conductors.
Meanwhile, the conductors, who were on strike, met the management, but they claimed that the response was not positive.
Leader of the city bus conductors, Sarabjit Singh, said, “We met additional commissioner Isha Kalia, who asked us to come on duty and advised us to meet the manager. But, when contacted, manager Baljeet Singh told us that our services had been terminated.”
On June 12, Baljeet Singh stated that the services of 135 conductors have been suspended, as they were not ready to come back on duty, until they were given written assurance for completion of their demands.
It is pertinent to mention here that the conductors of the City Bus Service had gone on strike, earlier, this month, as they were opposing the installation of new software for computerised ticket machines by the MC. The civic body had launched the system to curb discrepancies in issuing of tickets.
A resident, Sukwinder Singh, said, “The management should take required steps to resolve the matter at the earliest. We have been facing problems, as the city bus service is still not functional on all routes.”