Telangana RTC strike to continue as management’s talks with protestors fail

After almost 21 days of strike, acting on the Telangana High Court's directions, the Telangana Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) management on Saturday invited the protesting Joint Action Committee leaders (JAC) for talks to resolve the TSRTC crisis. However, the meeting yielded no result, and the protest will continue, said the protesting JAC. After a meeting which lasted for about two hours, TSRTC JAC convenor E Ashwathama Reddy said that it was a 'restrictive meeting'. "They took away our cell phones. They didn't allow us to speak. We asked them that the discussion should be held on all 26 demands. We said that you can fulfill the demands whatever you are capable of, but at least have a discussion on the issue. But they outrightly said that they didn't have such orders." Ashwathama Reddy alleged that the TSRTC management defied the court orders. "They didn't discuss even smaller financial issues citing that they didn't have money. They were willing to discuss only 21 demands for which, we said that we have to discuss with our union leaders, take a decision and meet again." He said that after discussing with the other JAC leaders, they would get back to them. "But we still request them to have a discussion on all our demands." The JAC leaders who were invited for the talks were: E Ashwathama Reddy, K Raji Reddy, V Srinivasa Rao and K Vasudeva Rao."They pressurized and tried convincing us to discuss only 21 demands but we rejected it," said K Raji Reddy, JAC co-convenor. "We will again meet them whenever they invite us for talks, and the protests will continue meanwhile." On Wednesday the government had constituted a committee of TSRTC officials to look into the employees' demands, barring the TSRTC's merger with the government – which is their primary demand. The committee headed by TSRTC Managing Director Sunil Sharma submitted its report to the government late on Friday. Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao discussed the report with Transport Minister P Ajay Kumar and other officials. It was at this meeting that the Chief Minister directed the TSRTC to invite JAC leaders for talks. Earlier, the government invited talks with the TSRTC and claimed that the JAC leaders themselves dropped the demand of a merger. However, the JAC leaders have been maintaining that they never compromised on their main demand. The TSRTC employees are on strike since October 5 as the government did not honour their demands, including the merger of the TSRTC with the state government. The TSRTC unions are of the view that the TSRTC is a tool for public service and not designed to make a profit, hence would be able to better serve the public if funded by the state exchequer. However, the government did not give in to this demand, and following the strike, the government dismissed 48,000 odd employees, which led to two suicides, and several suicide attempts. Some others died of cardiac arrest, allegedly due to depression triggered by job loss and non payment of salaries for the month of September. The TSRTC claimed that it did not have money to pay salaries for the employees. With IANS inputs