Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Monday called on Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan at Raj Bhavan in Hyderabad, to inform her about the state government's plans over the ongoing strike by employees of the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC).
KCR, whose meeting with Tamilisai lasted for around two hours, is also reported to have informed the Governor about the state government's plans to privatise 5,100 bus routes of the RTC. The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief aso informed Tamilisai that the decision would be taken under the Motor Vehicle (MV) Act, which was amended by the Centre recently.
The Telangana CM may need the Governor's support, as she would have to approve an ordinance on privatisation, that is first ratified by the state cabinet. If not, the policy will need to be brought and tabled before the Legislative Assembly.
Meanwhile, on Monday, the striking workers announced that they will return to work from Tuesday after their 52-day-long strike. Nearly 50,000 employees were on strike since October 5 to press for various demands including the merger of TSRTC, an autonomous corporation, with the government, which would give them equal benefits as state government employees.
This was the longest strike in the history of RTC in the Telugu states, has seen the death of close to 25 employees.
However, in an arrogant response, the management of the state-owned body refused to take them back as the matter is pending before the Labour Commissioner.
TSRTC Managing Director Sunil Sharma said that the decision by the employees, who were on an 'illegal' strike, was legally not tenable and asked them to wait till the Labour Commissioner completes the process as per the direction of the Telangana High Court.
The High Court had last week asked the Labour Commissioner to decide whether to refer the matter to a Labour Court or not. The court refused to call the strike illegal but also declined to issue directions to the government to take back the employees.
The TSRTC has not paid salaries to the employees for September and October, causing distress to thousands of workers.
IANS inputs
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