Bus transport services across Karnataka are severely hit on Friday as employees of the state-run State Road Transport Corporations (SRTCs) resorted to protest against state government’s refusal to consider them as regular government employees on par with any other government servant in the state.
Contrary to the assurances of the corporations that no transport trips will be affected due to the strike, most of the employees belonging to the four SRTCs including BMTC, KSRTC, NEKRTC and NWKRTC boycotted their work and resorted to protests in their respective depots and bus stations. As a result, several trips that were planned for Friday had to be cancelled besides affecting the regular operations.
In Bengaluru, most of the buses at Kempegowda Bus Terminus and BMTC bus stations remained off the roads. In various depots of the BMTC across Bengaluru, employees refused to go on regular trips leaving the buses stationed inside the depots. The sudden strike by the employees left hundreds of students, senior citizens and inter-district commuters on work purpose undergo severe hardships.
Several colleges and universities in different parts of the state had planned for examination and tests. However, due to the non-operation of the buses, many students missed out on the examination. Similar was the situation in Haveri, Belagavi, Chitradurga, Hassan and other districts with all buses remaining off the roads.
Pressing for their demands, the employees had staged a protest in Bengaluru on Thursday and tried to sneak into Vidhana Soudha to make the government listen to their demands. Sources in the transport sector and employees federation revealed to DH that the strike will further intensify with the return of buses that were stuck in various destinations after the night services.
In the meantime, Deputy Chief Minister and Transport Minister Laxman Savadi has appealed to the Employees Federation to withdraw their strike and said that it is impossible to consider their demands during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic as it would be an additional burden on the state exchequer.
Refusing to withdraw from the protests, Chandrashekhar, President of the Employees Federation said, “The police have released the protesting employees late in the night on Thursday. We will fight and protest until the government listens to our demands and no bus will be operated till our demands are met with.”