VIJAYAWADA: APSRTC Chairman Madireddy Pratap clarified that termination letters were not issued to any category of employees including contract/outsourcing personnel. He said written guidelines have been issued to all Regional Managers of the APSRTC.
“Some of our staff are getting infected with Covid-19. So we may ask only those people required to report for duties."
"This is issued to safeguard the health and safety of all employees(permanent/outsourcing/contract) working across all offices of RTC as we have 19 employees across the State already infected with Covid-19, since the resumption of bus services on May 22,” he said.
He said Chief Medical Officer Dr. Appa Rao has recommended that as there are more chances of spreading of virus if there are more people working in an office space/premises, it is necessary to restrict the working people in an office/ premises to the “bare minimum” required to contain the spread of virus.
The guidelines are in accordance with learned medical advice in this time of pandemic. RTC is not running normal operations and patronage to bus travel is less, just about 2 lakh passengers are using bus travel as opposed to 64 lakh passengers per day in normal times. The occupancy ratio in the buses is about 40%, whereas in normal times it used to be about 78%. Out of 12,000 buses in the control of Corporation, only about 3,200 buses are in operation.
“Therefore, we can run these operations with less number of staff and hence the guidelines to optimise the use of all categories of employees as per the need and simultaneously keep all employees safe from coronavirus,” he explained. The clarification came in response to reports that outsourcing staff have been removed by the RTC.