The commuters of the State Transport Services would face problems as one a major union of roadways has decided to go on a strike on August 13. On Wednesday, the Uttarakhand Roadways Sanyukt Parishad (URSP), one of the biggest association of the roadways employees declared that it would cease the operation of entire fleet of roadways buses from midnight of August 13 if its demands are not accepted. Two other unions of the roadways, the SC and ST union and Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) have also thrown their weight behind the URSP for the strike.
The general secretary of the URSP, Ram Chandra Raturi said that the state government is not heeding to the long pending demands of the employees of the state roadways. He said that the work charge employees of the roadways should be converted to the contractual workers. He said that the workers of the state roadways are still deprived from the benefit of the VII pay commission. Other demands of the union is to remove the pay disparity, payment of the pending retirement benefits to the superannuated employees and payment of Rs 67 crore which the state government owes to the state roadways.
There are more than 3500 work charge workers in the state roadways. The roadways unions are demanding that these workers should be converted into contractual workers.
The fleet of the state roadways comprises 1250 buses. The daily cash flow of the state roadways is Rs 1.25 crore per day and more than 1.40 lakh people commute daily in the buses of state transport carrier.
It is learnt that the roadways administration has started efforts to bring the agitated workers on the table for talks so that the extreme step of ceasing the wheels of the fleet could be reversed.