VIJAYAWADA: In a step towards fulfilling one of his key poll promises, Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Saturday directed the officials concerned to constitute a committee to look into the possibilities of merging the cash-strapped Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) with the State government.
The decision was announced during the first round of talks held on Saturday between the RTC Employees’ Unions, which had announced to go on a strike from June 13, and the government. According to sources, Principal Secretary (Transport) MT Krishna Babu, who held the talks with APSRTC Joint Action Committee (JAC) leaders on behalf of the government for nearly three hours, told them about the government’s decision.
Emerging out of the meeting, JAC convener P Damodar Rao said that the committee will have retired officials, vice-chairman and managing director of RTC, principal secretaries and employees union leaders as members. The committee will submit its report in two months from the date of its constitution.
“A GO in this regard will be issued in the next couple of days. Based on the report, the officials will prepare necessary guidelines for merging the corporation with the State government. The same will be discussed in the Cabinet meeting, which will take a final call on the issue,” Rao said.
The JAC convener maintained that all the exemptions given to government employees such as increasing the retirement age to 60 from 58 years will be also applicable to the RTC staff, once the merging gets completed.
The JAC urged the government to allocate house sites for employees, pension for retired staff, white ration card and take up compassionate appointments in RTC on the lines of government employees. In response to the plea made by JAC, the government responded positively, he claimed.
It may be recalled that the JAC comprising nine unions had decided to go on a strike from June 13, after the two rounds of talks convened with RTC management failed to yield any desired result. The RTC unions served the strike notice after the management failed to look into their charter of 26 demands including enhancement of retirement age and other financial benefits.
During the meeting, Krishna Babu responded positively to the demands of the employees and assured of taking them into the notice of the chief minister. With this, the JAC leaders, who proposed to organise meetings at Anantapur, Kurnool, Guntur and Vijayawada, called off their meetings. JAC delegation will also meet Jagan on Monday before announcing their future course of action.