TSRTC workers strike: The raising voice of an employee

hello readers!!!

I am chevva chandana  studying in lovely professional university, here to present you about the research,view point, and summary about the TSRTC employee strike happened in 2019 which effected the Telangana state in such a way that government has stepped down to resolve there issues and make there demands.

INTRODUCTION:

WHAT IS TSRTC ?

Telangana state road transportation and corporation ( TSRTC) is a state-owned corporation that runs transport services within the Indian state of telangana. It was formed in 2014 by splitting the Andhra Pradesh state road transportation. many other Indian metro towns in Andhra pradesh, Tamil nadu, Karnataka, Maharastra, Goa, Odisha, and chattisgarh are also linked with the services of TSRTC. It services about 89.4 lakh passengers every day,  having 3 zones and services operating through 96 depots. It has three zones, hyderabad(hakimpet), greater hyderabad(uppal), and karimnagar(rampur). it has 13 regions, The corporation is operating 10,460 buses from 97 depots and 364 bus stations. TSRTC buses undertake operations on 3,687 routes, with an approximate fleet of 10,476 under its wing.

PROTEST

Before being seperated from APSRTC  there was an issue going on from past time while this corporation is running in profits that is to merge the RTC in government. there are different unions formed within the corporation to resolve the problems happening in RTC. all those formed unions have one basic demand to state government that to merge RTC in government to get the benefits from it like pension and other benefits. meanwhile the state has a huge profits from this corporation since It established but the wages, areas,DA,incruments and payscales (all the payables to employees) were not paid less to the employees working in this corporation. so all the drivers,conductors and the rest of  staff demanded to have fair wages according to their contribution to RTC and state government.

After the formation of the new state (telangana), The  RTC was divided into two parts one is TSRTC( telanagana state road transportation and corporation) and another one is APSRTC( andhra pradesh state road transportation and corporation). in recent elections in andhra pradesh the YSRCP party was won with a huge majority and Y.S. jagan mohan reddy was emerged as new chief minister of AP state. so he recently merged APSRTC in the government and made decision to increase and pay the fair wages to the employees working in the corporation according to their contribution to the APSRTC.

But TSRTC is still remained as the corporation and many of the employees working in this corporation were paid less even though their contribution to the corporation was good. TSRTC has played an important role in the moment of the telangana for seperation of the telangana state from AP apart from OU students. During the telangana strike the TRS party leader K. chandhra shekar rao who was leading the telangana moment promised the employees that after the formation of the telangana state he will merge the TSRTC in government. but even after the state was seperated and TRS party had won the first ever election of telangana state it failed to full fill the promise made by the party leader KCR who was the first chief minister of telangana state. Again after winning the elections of 2019 the TRS party which is the present government ruling the state were stepped back to merge the RTC in government, From 2014 and still TSRTC employees were fighting against the government. though the people of the telangana state were totally depended on this TSRTC for transportation service there is support from no where.

And then the massive protest begun on october 6th different employees' and workers unions of the TSRTC begun an indefinite strike on Friday midnight across telangana on a call given by the joint action committee (JAC) of the corporation, demanding merger of the RTC with the government and recruitment to various posts, among other things. TSRTC employees have listed 26 demands. these include merger of the TSRTC with the state government, which would make them eligible to a number of perks and benefits; riembrusement of government dues to TSRTC; and an allocation of 1% of the state budget. so they went on massive strike by resisting the transportation service and stopped the buses to provide the service.

IMPACT OF THE STRIKE ON PUBLIC

After blocking the buses and resisting the transportation service there was a severe impact on public. as most of the public use this public transportation service of TSRTC now they are unable to travel within the state and out of the sate. since most of the collage students, government employees and middle class workers use the service of TSRTC ,now they were unable to go to their work. so the demand and need of TSRTC were noticed by the public and now the TSRTC got the public support as well. all the TSRTC employees  along with there children and people effected by this strike were raised their vioce against the government to get the things done.

GOVERNMENT VS TSRTC

As the strike began to grow big still the state government has stepped back to fulfill the demands of TSRTC . many opposition parties were also began to support TSRTC by commenting against the ruling party TRS and participating in TSRTC strike. as the things became worst few employees were committed suicide to make the demand done but there is no reaction from the state government. As the situation in the state became inconsistent a case was filed and submitted in high court. after dealing this case the high court questioned the state government that " why the payables of TSRTC were pending ?", and it ordered the state government to resolve the issue by solving their demand. after this order then the situation became more harder because the leader of the ruling party ( TRS) and chief minister of the telangana state k. chandhra shekar rao (KCR) has came up with media and press summit he reported that there is no use of TSRTC anymore in the state as it was in losses and there is a pressure in the government to pay the employees working in it. he also said that their is no use of strike performed by TSRTC since the state government is not going to merge the TSRTC with it and the state government is ready to fight against the TSRTC and no matter if lose in high court we go further for supreme court.

By seeing the reaction of the state government the TSRTC decided to continue the strike until there demand is being accepted by the state government. the number of suicides were increasing the buses were blocked educational institutions were shut downed and the situation of the sate became even worse. the days of strike were also kept counting As the strike by the Telangana State Road Transport Corp. (TSRTC) employees entered its 47th day on Wednesday, the unions said they were ready to call it off if the state government was willing to take back the 48,000-plus employees unconditionally.

As the sate government has realized the situation of the state and issues and pain of the strike done by the TSRTC employees. it conducted a meeting with the heads of the TSRTC to know there demands. after the meeting the state government has stepped down and made promise that the state government will analyse the financial position of the RTC and the employees will receive their payables including the days counted of the strike. he orderd the TSRTC employees to join there duties as soon as possible and start providing the transportation service to the public and finally the TSRTC Joint Action Committee (TSRTC JAC) leaders called off their 52-day-long strike on Monday evening. Giving a call to RTC employees to resume duties from 6 a.m. of Tuesday, they have requested temporary drivers and conductors, who have been offering services during the strike period, not to attend duties.

But still the actual demand of the TSRTC was not fulfilled that to merge in state government. the employees are hoping that in further days they will again go for an action if the demand is not made by the government. but with this strike the whole state revenue had effected badly because it is the only corporation which provide the transport facilities to the public since they were unable to attend their work as the buses were blocked, hopping that in further coming days the state government would consider the demands of the TSRTC as they truly deserve their demands.