Hyderabad: The Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TGSRTC) Workers Union is planning a large-scale hunger strike at Indira Park if their long-standing demands are not met by the state government.
K Rajireddy, the union’s General Secretary, pointed out several major issues driving this decision. Workers are pressing for a wage revision, official recognition of their union, and payment of overdue amounts.
Rajireddy mentioned that the 2021 wage revision promised by Congress during the 2023 elections is still pending. The previous BRS regime had eliminated welfare committees and banned unions, a policy the current government has not changed. Although the government approved 3,038 new positions, it continues to outsource driver and conductor roles, which is unprecedented in the history of RTC. Workers are demanding a 100% increment in the 2017 wage revision allowances and the immediate payment of 11 pending Dearness Allowances (DAs) from 2019 to 2024. They also want arrears paid in bonds with five-year interest.
The union is concerned about the growing pressure on employees who lack job security, as well as the regularization of temporary staff. They are calling for several immediate actions: forming a committee with union input to draft RTC merger guidelines, dropping false police cases from the 2019 strike, ending outsourcing, starting regular hiring, compensating families of deceased or medically unfit workers, reviewing unfair dismissals under the Mahalakshmi scheme and disputes over breath analyzer tests, and organizing elections for RTC’s Credit Cooperative Society (CCS).
