BENGALURU: Transportation in the city and state could be hit with the federation of employees of the city and all the state transport corporations planning an agitation after October 2. A meeting of the federation is scheduled on October 2, following which they plan an agitation for around 15 to 20 days, says Nagaraju S, general secretary, Workers Federation KSRTC, BMTC, NEKRTC and NWKRTC that comprises 50,000 members.
"Our main demand is that we get the benefits of government employees. Every government employee has some sort of pension scheme where around 15 percent of his/her salary is deducted towards it. As of now we do not even have pension benefits," he says.
Another demand is that there be easy transfer of employees from one transport corporation to another. "Already around 2,000 employees from BMTC, for example, have been transferred to other state corporations. Another 18,000 employees of various corporations are in line, but this has not yet been done," says Nagaraju.
He also highlighted a number of issues faced by transport workers, including some having to travel for 24 hours at a stretch. "Say a driver who goes from here to Mumbai have to drive for long hours. It's a hazard, yet the benefits are negligible. Also, if a forest guard or a policeman dies in duty, he or she gets huge compensation. However, for a transport employee there is no such benefit," Nagaraju rues.
He says that the federation had spoken to the transport minister, chief minister and other officers of the corporation about the matter. "The CM asked us to give him time. He said he will settle our problems. This was about four months ago. However, nothing has been done so far. Now, an agitation is the only answer," says Nagaraju. Back in 2017, the federation had agitated for three days and got some of their demands fulfilled.
B Basavaraju, principal secretary, Transport Department says that he is not aware of any upcoming strike of the transport workers.