Maharashtra: MSRTC staff call off strike over salary hike promise

Waiting at the Parel bus depot on Wednesday, passengers to the Konkan region were inconvenienced by the MSRTC workers’s strike. Pic/Atul Kamble

The strike by Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) was called off late Wednesday evening following an intervention meeting by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde who assured the agitating workers' action committee that the hike of Rs 6,500 on basic salary would be brought into effect for MSRTC employees. Chief Minister Eknath Shinde had met with leaders and workers of the action committee at the Sahyadri guest house.

On Wednesday, MSRTC workers continued the strike on second consecutive day affecting passengers to Konkan for the Ganesh festival. There were 94 out of 251 bus depots across the state that were nonoperational and 70 per cent of the buses remained idle. The public transport corporation suffered an estimated loss of Rs 22 crore.

"While another 92 bus depots were partially affected, 65 remained completely operational with no participation in the strike. Today of the 40,069 scheduled buses, 27,470 had to be cancelled due to the strike call." a MSRTC spokesperson said on Wednesday. "Of the 1,000 scheduled additional buses each from Mumbai, Thane and Palghar bus depots, 306 were operational in Mumbai, 336 in Thane and 150 in Palghar. Efforts are on to operate the remaining buses in the night," the spokesperson said.

Passengers outside Mumbai and in rural areas of the state complained of lack of buses as they waited for two hours. Bus depots like Sawantwadi which are jam-packed during the Ganesh festival wore a deserted look with buses lined up with no staff. The action committee of the 11 trade unions has called for the strike for various demands, including demand of salary revision at par with state government employees and disbursement of arrears of dearness allowance. Ironically, BJP MLA Gopichand Padalkar and BJP ally MLC Sadabhau Khot have supported the strike, putting the state government in a dilemma.

"When we asked the administration how much pay is given to MSRTC employees, we were told it was about R410 crore as monthly salaries to its employees. When we procured the actual data last month and assessed it, we found that the actual salary was just R347 crore of which R30 crore was the overtime payment to employees. This means that the MSRTC spends about only R317 crore as salaries for its employees. This is a clear case of the administration lying to the government and the government keeping quiet. Our demand was that the salary of MSRTC employees should be raised so that the monthly salary expenditure comes to the figure of Rs 410 crore," Padalkar had told the media.