RTC Strike Continues As Govt. Fails To Hold Talks
Hyderabad, Oct.19 (Maxim News): The High Court directive to end the impasse surrounding the RTC strike by holding talks was thrown to the winds by both the State Government and the striking transport staff who remained adamant and did not budge from their respective stance.
As a result, the RTC buses continued to remain off the roads for the 15th consecutive day on Saturday. What is more the hardship of the commuters further escalated with the private cab drivers of Ola and Uber services and some auto unions extending support to the striking employees.
Intervening to break the prolonging deadlock over the RTC strike, the High Court on Friday directed the State Government to initiate talks with the striking employees on Saturday at 10.30 am and set a deadline of three days to complete the negotiations. Even the leaders of the JAC of TSRTC were advised to call off the strike and commence talks with the authorities. However contrary to expectations, the talks did not take place and the bus strike continued.
What is intriguing is that while the JAC leaders claimed that they were ready for talks if invited by the concerned authorities, the state government’s excuse in evading negotiations was that it had not yet received the High Court order.
Meanwhile the state-wide bandh called by the striking RTC employees and supported by various opposition parties, trade unions, student organisations, private cab drivers, teachers and lawyers associations etc., did not have any impact on the day to day normal life except transport services being dislocated putting hardships to commuters, especially passengers arriving at the airport and railway stations. Hotels, eating houses, shops and business establishments, banks and other organisations functioned normally. Shopkeepers seemed to have ignored the bandh call mainly keeping in view the Diwali festival round the corner. Also since it being a Saturday, the multi-national companies in the high-tech city observed their routine holiday. Thus the much publicised and talked about Telangana Bandh turned out be only “Transport Bandh” as almost all the buses in the Telangana State were confined to the depots.
The so-called bandh, however passed off peacefully without any major incident, though stray incident of stone pelting on buses trying to move were reported from few places. However the impact of the bandh was witnessed on the streets when opposition and trade union leaders organized rallies, dharnas and rasta rokho all over the state.(Maxim News)
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