PUNE: The senior management of the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation is clueless on when and how the employees’ strike would end, over three months after the agitation started.
The vice-chairman and managing director of the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC), Shekhar Channe, on Monday said the biggest problem was the absence of any leaders of the agitating workers. He said it was practically making it impossible to hold parleys on negotiations with anyone.
“They are leaderless at this point of time. Without a leader or a group of people leading them, it is difficult to talk to them and try to reach a solution. Till now, just 30% of the agitating workers have joined back. More employees want to join, but their peers on strike are not letting them do so. They get trolled mercilessly, resulting in they not joining the work despite their wish,” Channe told TOI.
The strike across the MSRTC depots involving over 80,000 workers started in November last year.
In the Pune division, the strike reached 100th day on February 8.
“Until now, we have hired around 900 private drivers on contract to run the buses. Around 50 of them have been given to the Pune division. The number of such drivers will increase if the employees continue to be on strike,” Channe said.
“During the pre-Covid period, MSRTC ran 15,000 to 16,000 buses across the state. The number came down during the pandemic. Before the strike started, we were operating between 11,000 and 12,000 buses daily. At present, we are running just 3,000 buses daily across the state. The final decision about imposing Mesma (Maharashtra Essential Services Maintenance Act) on the workers on strike has to be taken by the state government,” he added.
A labour court in Mumbai had termed the MSRTC employees’ strike illegal. Thereafter, several appeals were made to the workers to resume work, but in vain.
The strike did not end despite the state government increasing the salary of MSRTC employees and assuring that it would be brought at par with the state government employees. The agitating workers have been demanding merger of MSRTC with the state government.
More than 11,000 MSRTC employees across the state have been suspended so far. Some have also been terminated from service.
Pune scenario
Of the 3,939 employees in the Pune division of MSRTC, around 2,547 are still on strike. Just about 200 of around 600 buses are operational. The buses are plying on only 75 of the 910 routes from Pune. The daily losses of the division stand at Rs90 lakh to Rs1 crore.
