Talks between the Manohar Lal Khattar Government and the striking roadways employees failed yet again on Wednesday with both sides sticking to their previous stand on the issue of hiring of 700 private buses in the state.
The roadways employees have been on strike since October 16 against the Haryana Government's decision to hire 700 buses of private owners and have announced to continue their strike on October 25.
This was the second meeting between the Haryana Government and roadways employees unions. Earlier on Sunday also, the two sides had failed to reach a consensus even after five rounds of meeting.
On Wednesday, the meeting between Transport Minister Krishan Lal Panwar and union leaders continued for about two and a half hours to end the deadlock and inconvenience caused to lakhs of commuters in Haryana
After the meeting, the union leaders said that the government has remained adamant on its decision of hiring private buses.
The government has stated that 510 private buses, for which tenders were floated will ply in the state while for the remaining 190, tenders will not floated. Representatives of the employees union demanded cancellation of the tenders issued for 510 private buses also, a union leader said.
The roadways unions have alleged that the State Government is trying to benefit a private transporter by hiring private buses.
A meeting of the coordination committee of employees union will now take a decision on Thursday to decide over the ongoing strike.
Meanwhile, the State Government claimed that 2999 buses plied on Haryana roads on Wednesday. It included 1820 buses of roadways, 120 school and private buses and 1059 other buses.
The Transport officials have said that the ongoing strike is causing a loss of around Rs 8-9 crore to the state roadways every day
Justifying move to introduce 700 private buses, the government has maintained that the Haryana Roadways at present has only 4,100 buses. Given the demand, the state needs 15,000 buses to cater to the population of over 2.5 crore.
There are about 19,000 employees in Haryana Roadways, which has a fleet of more than 4000 buses in which nearly 12 lakh passengers travel daily.
While private operators will run new buses and have their own drivers, the conductors will be employees of the Haryana Roadways, who will submit the receipts to the government.