CHENNAI: The DMK-led opposition today held protests across Tamil Nadu to demand a full rollback of the recent bus fare hike, with police detaining DMK's M K Stalin and MDMK's Vaiko for blocking roads in the capital.
Reacting to the protests, Chief Minister K Palaniswami said it was done to "pressure," the government.
The protest was merely "political," and not for the sake of people, Palaniswami told reporters here.
Bringing together a string of opposition parties including allies Congress, IUML and friendly outfits like the CPI(M) and CPI, DMK working chief M K Stalin led the protest by going on a procession holding his party flag here.
A day after the government went in for a marginal cut in fare, Stalin dubbed it "eyewash," and a "drama."
The government increased the fare days after agreeing to a salary hike for state transport corporation employees who struck work for eight days last month.
Calling the protest a big victory, Stalin said if the government did not reverse the hike completely, the protests would be intensified.
It would be done after consulting all opposition parties, he said.
MDMK, Manithaneya Makkal Katchi, and Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi cadres also took part in the protests.
AIADMK government defends hike
Chief Minister K Palaniswami said the hike was effected after six years due to unavoidable circumstances to save the state-run transport corporations that face a severe financial crunch.
He blamed DMK labour union LPF for instigating the employees to go in for a strike demanding a wage hike and now opposing the increase in fare.
Palaniswami said when DMK demitted office in 2011, the transport corporations had a Rs 3,392.15 crore debt.
At that time, the payout kept pending for retirees was Rs 922.24 crore and for in-service personnel, it was Rs 1528.05 crore and 112 properties of transport corporations were mortgaged. Despite such factors, the government refrained from going in for a hike for six long years.
On the opposition charge that the hike was due to the "administrative inefficiency," of the ruling regime, Palaniswami retorted, asking if his regime, which disbursed Rs 922 crore for the retirees was good or that of those (DMK) who had put it on hold.
In March 2011, during the DMK regime, the outgo towards salaries was only Rs 252.37 crore and now it was Rs 492.16 crore, which was about 90 per cent increase,he said.
A host of factors like increase in salaries, price of diesel, maintenance and cost of new buses made the hike inevitable, he said.
Even after the upward fare revision, the transport corporations face a loss of Rs four crore everyday and despite that government operated 22,000 buses to serve the people.
He also pointed out that students get free bus passes for which the government paid Rs 541 crore to the transport corporations annually.
The Tamil Nadu government ran more number of buses than other neighbouring states and similarly the fare too was comparatively lower.
The protests were led by DMK leaders in all districts.
Former Ministers Duraimurugan (Vellore), K N Nehru (Tiruchirappalli), E V Velu (Tiruvannamalai), K Ponmudi (Villupuram) were among those who led the protests.
MDMK founder Vaiko and VCK founder Thol Thirumavalavan were detained with DMK workers at Saidapet here when they staged protests.
All those detained were let off later in the day, police said.
Yesterday, the government had revised bus fares marginally, following protests by opposition and the public, especially students.
The reduction was between two paise to 10 paise per km for various categories of buses and routes such as city, districts, express and ordinary services, a government release said.
In Chennai city, bus fares have been cut by Rs one across various stages. The minimum fare would now be Rs 4 and the maximum Rs 18.
The revision will come into effect from today.
The state government had on January 19 hiked ticket prices of buses operated by transport corporations by about 20 to 54.54 per cent, drawing criticism.
Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation workers, owing allegiance to 17 trade unions, including those affiliated to the DMK and Left parties, had launched a stir on January 4 after talks with the state government on wage revision failed.
While the unions demanded that salaries be hiked 2.57 times, the government offered only 2.44, resulting in a stalemate.
The workers had withdrawn their eight-day strike on January 11 after the Madras High Court appointed an arbitrator to settle their wage-related dispute with the government.