NWKRTC employees continued their strike for the third day in Belagavi on Sunday. Wives, husbands and children of workers joined the protesters in the Central Bus Stand. They sat for hours holding placards, walked on their knees and staged a half-naked protest by removing their shirts. They also raised slogans against Deputy Chief Minister and Transport Minister Laxman Savadi.
The strike continued in Vijayapura, Bagalkot and Hubballi-Dharwad too. In Vijayapura, NEKRTC buses remained mostly off the road for the third day on Sunday.
Drivers and conductors of NEKRTC boycotted work and staged a protest against the State government, with demands like regularisation of services as transport department employees.
A driver said that it was a long-pending demand but successive governments had failed to fulfil it. NEKRTC officers said that the division had suffered a loss of ₹ 18 lakh per day.
