Leaders of the Employees Union (EU) of the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) and RTC Joint Action Committee (JAC) are up in arms against a proposal made by the public transport carrier’s Vice-Chairman and Managing Director D. Madireddy Pratap on allowing private bus operators to ply on APSRTC routes.
“On one hand, Transport Minister Perni Venkataramaiah has been assuring unions that the State government would not take any step that is detrimental to the interests of the organisation and its workers, while on the other hand, Mr. Pratap is taking a unilateral stand on key issues related to the future of the Corporation,” EU State president Y.V. Rao and JAC convener P. Damodar Rao said in a statement on Friday.
The union leaders said that the Minister had on several occasions denied that there were plans to privatise the APSRTC.
“But Mr. Pratap, when faced with opposition to his proposal by the union leaders, had been insisting that there was no harm in permitting private buses to operate on routes earmarked for RTC buses,” they claimed.
The leaders also found fault with Mr. Pratap’s ‘autocratic’ style of functioning and demanded that the proposal be withdrawn at the earliest. They said that if Mr. Pratap continues to stick to his stand, all unions in the APSRTC would come together and stage a collective protest against his decisions.
‘Issues not discussed’
Mr. Pratap, who had assumed charge as the Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of the Corporation on January 2, had kept the unions at arm’s length, the leaders alleged. There were important issues related to the workers that needed to be discussed with him but he has not given them an audience so far, they said.
Contrary to the expectations of the workers that the Corporation’s merger with the State Government would ease their problems, the union leaders said that the management seemed to be in no mood to address their issues.
They warned that if the existing circumstances were allowed to continue, the workers would be forced to take up agitations against the government.
