Telangana Congress MPs Meet Nitin Gadkari Over RTC Issue

The three Congress MPs from Telangana - TPCC President N Uttam Kumar Reddy (Nalgonda), Komatireddy Venkat Reddy (Bhongir) and A Revanth Reddy (Malkajgiri) - on Tuesday expressed deep anguish and agony at the "inhuman" manner in which the RTC employees were being treated by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao and his "cohorts" like TSRTC MD Sunil Sharma.

The MPs had gone to New Delhi to meet PM Narendra Modi over the issue, and were told that an appointment with the Prime Minister might be possible only on Wednesday. They then met Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari at his office, and urged him to have the Central government immediately intervene in the RTC issue.

Uttam Kumar Reddy told Gadkari that the Central government held a 33% share in the TSRTC, and therefore it was its duty to protect the institution and its employees.

He said that the nearly 50,000 employees who were being fired had all rendered services for several decades, and also that the RTC buses operated services in all rural and remote areas, which might not continue if it was privatized. Therefore the Central government could not abandon the institution, he said, and urged Gadkari to play a pro-active role in resolving the issue.

Responding to the request, the union minister assured the MPs that he would convene a meeting on Thursday.

Speaking to the media later, Reddy said that the Telangana Chief Minister was neither resolving the demands of the RTC employees nor at least allowing them to rejoin work.

"The Chief Minister's directions to the TSRTC management not to take back the employees only show his cruelty, inhuman attitude and vindictiveness, which are rarely seen in public life in India. What is the CM trying to do? Is he trying to drive nearly 50,000 families to suicide?" Reddy asked.

He added that KCR had come to power on the promise of providing a job to every household, but was doing the exact oppsite now. "KCR has not only failed to fulfil his promise, he is now trying to strip existing employees also of their jobs," he said.

Strongly opposing the privatization of the RTC, Reddy said that such privatization would increase the cost of travel for the general public and also result in permanent closure of the corporation. He said that all the previous governments had treated public transport as a welfare measure and not as a service for profit.

He also added that the RTC under the previous Congress regimes was a world-class institution, and had even entered the Guinness Book of World Records for being the world's largest and best public transport organization, and it was the first time that someone was berating it for poor performance.

He strongly condemned KCR for dismissing the RTC staff. He promised that whenever the Congress came to power at the State or the Centre, it would cancel the privatization and restore the jobs of all the removed employees.