If driving on Bengaluru’s roads is something that you would like to avoid at all costs, or if you are done with spending time stuck in traffic jams, and the city’s worsening traffic condition has made you contemplate leaving the city, you are not alone.
In fact, if their wishes are granted, then, the already staff starved Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation will lose a third of its current employees.
A total of 10,217 grade-3 and grade-4 employees of the BMTC, which includes drivers and conductors, have requested a transfer away from the silicon city.
However, the BMTC - which is already short of more than 4,000 drivers and conductors - will only award transfers depending on vacancy of corresponding positions in other state transport corporations, as a part of an inter-corporation transfer programme.
"Since transfer is given to employees only based on seniority and availability of vacant posts in other transport corporations, the move will not affect us in any way,” Anjum Parwez, Managing Director of BMTC told The Economic Times.
Moreover, HV Ananta Subbarao, General Secretary of KSRTC Staff and Workers’ Federation, told The New Indian Express that some interorganisational transfers are pending since 2009.
Media reports cite the stress of driving on traffic clogged roads as one of the primary reason for drivers to request a move away from the metro city.
“Driving in such heavy traffic in the city during the day is stressful. It takes a toll on our health,” Raju, a driver on the busy ‘335’ route told The Hindu.
“We are unable to stick to the schedule timings due to heavy traffic, and are therefore losing allowances. Penalty is also imposed on staffers for no reason,” another BMTC driver was quoted as saying in TNIE.
"One of the reasons is that a large number of people whom we have recruited belong to North Karnataka. After some years of work, they want to go back to their native places,” added Parwez.
However, it is not only BMTC staff who have applied for transfer in this one-time inter-corporation transfer request window. Thousands of personnel of the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation, North Eastern KRTC and North Western KRTC respectively handed out transfer requests as well.