Punjab Roadways employees agree to call off strike

But say will resume services only after the sacked employees are reinstated and those arrested during the agitation are released

Punjab Roadways, PUNBUS and the Pepsu Road Transport Corporation (PRTC) employees’ strike, which had paralysed transport services in the state for over 72 hours, was called off after a seven-hour meeting between transport minister Laljit Singh Bhullar and union leaders on Sunday.

Union members with the transport minister on Sunday. (HT Photo)

Though the union has assured that they will no longer be protesting against the ‘kilometre scheme’, they won’t be resuming services until the reinstatement orders for the sacked employees are issued and those arrested during the agitation are released by the police.

Authorities, however, said that bus operations started normalising by Sunday evening and will be fully operational in the next 12 hours.

PRTC managing director Bikramjit Singh Gill, said, “Around 700 buses – out of the fleet of 1,188 – are already on road. By Monday morning, as the strike ends, all our buses will be operational.”

A senior official of the transport department said, “The contractual employees have agreed that they will not interfere with administrative decisions of the state transport undertakings (STUs), especially regarding the kilometre scheme. We will consider their genuine demands, especially those related to regularisation as per the policy of the Punjab government.”

Confirming the development, minister Bhullar said the suspended employees would be reinstated and the remaining legitimate demands of the employees would also be met soon.

The minister further said that the employees’ unions have agreed that they would not interfere in purchasing of the new fleet of buses. He added that the unions also agreed to not interfere without a valid reason if employees were found involved in any illegal activity at the depot level.

When contacted, a union leader who participated in the meeting with the transport minister, said, “Neither have the reinstatement orders been issued nor have the arrested employees been released. Therefore, we will not resume our duties until both these demands are met.”

Earlier during a meeting with the union on Saturday, chief minister Bhagwant Mann had appealed to them to adopt the path of dialogue. The employees had launched the agitation on Friday against the opening of tenders related to the kilometre-based bus scheme, which they claimed was “a backdoor attempt to bring in private buses and dismantle the state-run transport system, enabling private operators to run buses on government-notified routes”. A day later, the PRTC had terminated the services of 22 contractual employees and issued show-cause notices to nearly 1,100 others for failing to report for duty as the strike continued.

All along the strike, bus services in parts of the state remained affected, causing great inconvenience to commuters.