More than 60 hours after the strike began, there was no relief on Thursday for the 60 lakh passengers who use the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation’s (MSRTC) bus services, and no signs of any immediate resolution, after the six-hour-long negotiations between state transport minister Diwakar Raote and the unions failed on Wednesday night.
This means that passengers across Maharashtra will either have to cancel their travel plans, or pay the exorbitant fares that private transport operators are charging. “For the Mumbai-Kolhapur bus journey, travel operators generally charge less than Rs 1,000 even during the festive season, but now the fare is Rs 2,000,” said PS Bhosale, a Lalbaug resident. He added that a travel operator told him that the Mumbai-Jalgaon journey would cost almost Rs 3,500.
The Maharashtra State ST Kamagar Sanghatana (MSSKS), supported by six other labour unions, in the MSRTC is leading the agitation, which entered its third day on Thursday. The unions are demanding salary revision based on recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission.
With a fleet of more than 19,000 buses, the MSRTC is the country’s largest public transport undertaking. Every day, it ferries around 60 lakh passengers on intra-city and inter-city routes, besides providing bus service in cities such as Vasai-Virar, Nalasopara and Nashik. Its Mumbai-Pune buses are particularly popular.
Over one lakh MSRTC employees went on an indefinite strike on Tuesday. In the first half of Tuesday, MSRTC operated barely 650 services, in place of the scheduled 23,500 services.
After 13 rounds of discussions, Raote and union leaders once again had a long meeting on Wednesday to end the stalemate, but this time too discussions led nowhere. Addressing the media after the meeting, Raote said: “We have offered whatever we can. We can’t give them one penny more than what we have offered. Now the union leaders have to take a call.”
The government has allowed private vehicles to ferry passengers, and they are fleecing passengers. RTO offices across the state have been arranging buses and taxis, but they are inadequate compared to the demand. Railway authorities, too, pitched in on Wednesday, attaching four extra coaches to four trains at the request of the state government.
Diwali sees the highest rush in MSRTC buses, and the transport body had already hiked fares temporarily by 10% from October 15.
