MSRTC strike called off after two days

None of the labour unions has taken responsibility of the strike.

The strike started by employees of the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) was called off on Saturday evening after a detailed meeting with transport minister Diwakar Raote. The two-day strike which started on Friday, affected commuters wanting to commute intercity and in the state, as 80% of the 18,000 bus fleet across Maharashtra were off the road.

MSRTC employees were on strike since Friday (HT Photo)

Out of the total 250 bus depots in the state, 74 were completely shut, 25 were operating and 151 had partial bus operations on the second day of the strike. The management suffered a loss of ₹15 crore on Friday and on Saturday, a loss of ₹18 crore was incurred. Nineteen newly-introduced Shivshahi buses were also damaged during the strike.

The strike was only called off after the intervention of Raote, who assured the employees that their concerns would be addressed. Earlier on Saturday, a meeting between MSRTC management and employees had failed. The strike was called by the employees as they wanted a hike in salary. They were protesting against the proposed wage revision between April 1, 2016 to March 31, 2020.

The bus services from Parel depot were completely shut on Friday but on Saturday evening, buses started plying. The services between Mumbai and Pune, and other intercity routes were also hit due to the strike and city bus services on routes like Dadar-Alibaug, Thane-Borivali, Bhiwandi-Mumbai and others were also affected.

None of the labour unions has taken responsibility of the strike. A day before, the state intelligence wing also warned about the flash strike, but the transport department and MSRTC did not take any immediate steps to provide relief to passengers.

Last year, MSRTC employees had gone on a flash strike during Diwali. It lasted for four days, causing immense problems for lakhs of commuters who wanted to travel to their home-towns for the festival. At the time, the strike was called off following a Bombay high court directive which had asked to set up a panel for in order to study the wage revision.