State Warns 52,000 RTC Staff Of Dismissal

The Telangana government today asked the TSRTC trade unions and employees not to go on their proposed strike, to start Friday midnight, as it would cause a lot of inconvenience to the general public in the festive season.

Simultaneously, it also warned TSRTC staff that any one of them not reporting for duty by 6 pm on Saturday (October 5) would be dismissed. Both Special Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar and transport minister P Ajay Kumar issued the warning, saying a strike would be against the law.

The strike seemed unavoidable as of Friday evening as there was no breakthrough in the talks between the government and the RTC unions. Over 50,000 staff will stay home and 10,000 buses will go off the roads if the strike takes off.

The main demand of the RTC unions is the merger of the TSRTC, currently a corporation, with the State government. A three-member committee headed by Principal Secretary Somesh Kumar and RTC MD Sunil Sharma had held talks with leaders of the unions but failed to resolve the issue. The transport minister disbanded the committee last night.

The issue has caused KCR to cut short his 4-day Delhi trip to return to Hyderabad and call for a meeting with all ministers and MPs available in the capital to ask them to make alternate arrangements for transport in the various districts.

Some 12,000 school buses and 2,000 other rented buses are reportedly going to be plied from Saturday to make up for the likely RTC strike. The government has also asked private transport operators not to burden the people by collecting more amounts from them during the RTC strike.