VIJAYAWADA: The Joint Action Committee of Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) has maintained that unilateral decisions of the management to downsize the staff in various departments of the corporation and delay in implementation of assured promises forced employees to go on strike.
In a press release issued here on Monday, JAC convener P Damodar Rao said the management failed to increase the number of staff by seven per cent every year based on the number of buses and passengers. The management didn’t initiate any steps in this regard citing the poor financial position of the corporation. In 2014, the RTC staff strength stood around 64,000 and after State bifurcation, 12,000 staff got reduced. Since then higher authorities failed to conduct recruitment, thus increasing the workload on the existing staff, he rued.
In such a scenario, the higher authorities are setting a ground to reduce 4,000 more staff in various departments of the corporation. Taking a serious note of the issue, the JAC backed by nine other unions -- include Employees Union (EU) Staff and Workers Federation (SWF), YSR RTC Mazdoor Union, Karmik Sangh and Bahujan Welfare Union (BWU) -- gave an ultimatum to RTC vice-chairman and managing director NV Surendra Babu to drop their proposal of downsizing the staff and demanded fulfilment of the long-pending demands of the employees. If the management failed to do so, the JAC would hit the streets after May 22, he said.
BJP MLC Somu Veerraju opposes APSRTC’s fare hike proposal
Vijayawada: Opposing the proposed move of the APSRTC to increase bus fare, BJP MLC Somu Veerraju has found fault with the management for its failure to collect `225 crore dues from the State government. Veerraju said that the TDP government had used the APSRTC buses for programmes such as Polavaram project visit and Jnanabheri, but it did not pay `225 crore for the same so far.