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Court upholds move to privatise 50% of Telangana RTC routes
This comes as a blow to the TSRTC employees who had offered to end their strike and return to work.
The Telangana high court on Friday upheld the decision of the state cabinet to privatise 50% of state road transport corporation (TSRTC) bus routes.
This comes as a blow to the TSRTC employees who had offered to end their strike and return to work.
A division bench of the high court dismissed a petition challenging the November 2 cabinet decision to privatise 5,100 TSRTC bus routes. The bench said the government was well within its powers to privatise public transport under Section 102 of the Motor Vehicle Act of 1988.
The corporation employees had been on strike since October 5 with chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) refusing to consider any of their demands, including a revision of their pay scales.
On November 18, the high court referred the matter to the labour department so that the issue could be settled through the labour court. Following the order, the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of employees’ unions had announced that they were ready to call off their strike but there was reportedly no response from the government.
On Friday, when RTC employees in Warangal reported for work, the depot manager reportedly refused to take them in citing lack of instructions from the government. Similar incidents were reported from Khammam and Jangaon districts as well.
An official statement from the chief minister’s office said the corporation was in debt amounting to ₹5,000 crore of which about ₹2,000 crore was required immediately to pay salaries, provident fund and other dues.
“The TSRTC will incur an average expenditure of ₹640 crore a month, something the corporation can ill afford,” the official release said.
JAC convenor E Ashwathama Reddy said the judgment left the employees with no choice but to continue their agitation. “We shall seek the Centre’s intervention in resolving the crisis,” he said.
