Thousands of commuters across Haryana faced a tough time on Tuesday as the State roadways employees remained off the road, to protest issuance of permits to private operators.
The State roadways services remained paralysed across Haryana and its capital-Chandigarh with the State transport employees remaining adamant on their demand of withdrawal of Government’s decision to issue permits to private operators.
The roadways employees under the banner of Haryana Roadways Employees Union (HRWU) and other roadways unions staged demonstrations at various depots in the State.
The unions, however, announced to withdraw their “chakka jam” on late Tuesday evening after attending a meeting convened by Transport Minister Krishan lal Panwar to resolve their issues.
During the strike, the employees staged demonstrations at various depots, including Hisar, Ambala, Kaithal, Jind and Rohtak and raised slogans in support of their demands.
Multiple rounds of talks have been held between the State Government and roadways representatives during the past two months to break the deadlock over the issuance of permits to private operators, but they have failed to yield much. “More than 4,000 buses including Volvo buses remained off the road across the state on Tuesday. The roadways employees protested against the State Government’s policy of granting permits to private operators. The Government is planning to privatise the roadways,” said Haryana Roadways Workers Union leader Sarbat Singh Punia while talking to The Pioneer.
Punia said the Transport Minister had assured them of withdrawing permits given to about 300 private operators under transport policy of 2016-17. “We have withdrawn the strike and have given two days ultimatum to the State Government to withdraw the permits given to private operators,” he said.
The union leader said the Minister had also assured that no fresh permits would be given to provide operators and fresh policy would be drafted.
He said a proposal of plying private buses on rural routes in the State, put forth by the Minister had been rejected by the union leaders at the meeting.
In the past too, the Government has made a commitment, but failed to honour it. Thus, we will wait for two days to decide future course of action, said Punia.
Punia said, “We don’t want to create inconvenience for general public but we are forced to go on strike due to callous attitude of the Government. We will protest against the privatisation of the roadways.”
During the meeting, the union leaders have demanded that more buses should be added to the roadways fleet. There is also a shortage of drivers and conductors, which should be resolved, he added.
Earlier, Haryana roadways unions had protested for four days in the month of April over issuance of permits to private operators in the state. At the time, the Government had agreed to scrap the new transport policy of 2016-17. However, it was decided that 844 buses would continue to ply on old routes under the previous transport policy till the new policy was finalised.
At that time, the State Government had suffered a loss of `4 crore per day due to the strike.