More than 150 BMTC drivers and conductors held a protest at BMTC’s office in Shanthinagar on Monday for not being relieved by the BMTC to join the NEKRTC as was assured to them.

These employees, a majority of them from Hyderabad-Karnataka region, have been working with the BMTC for as long as 10 years and had recently got jobs with the NEKRTC. They were issued the joining orders in April-May this year. However, the BMTC authorities, who had initially promised to relieve them by July 31 expressed their inability to do so immediately. Around 500 drivers and conductors from the BMTC are set to join the NEKRTC and authorities fear that relieving such a large number of personnel would adversely affect services.

Protesters said the BMTC gave them the ‘No Objection Certificates’ to apply to another government organisation but was not relieving them from duty when the appointment orders had already been issued. They said they had already shifted their families to the respective places of joining.

BMTC MD Ekroop Caur said: “There are around 500 drivers who will be joining NEKRTC and they could not be relieved immediately as it would affect operations. Our recruitments are underway and we have already taken permission from the NEKRTC MD to allow us to retain them till two more months and they have agreed to it. We will retain them till the beginning of October and by then our vacancies will be filled”, she added.

However, the protesters threatened that they would not report for work on Tuesday, in which case the services would be affected. The BMTC MDsaid talks would be held with conductors and drivers to convince them to attend for duty.