The HRTC bus services in Himachal Pradesh were severely impacted with about 9000 employees of the corporation going on a day long strike. More than 1900 bus routes were affected causing inconvenience to passengers including students, employees and tourists.
HRTC Employees on strike.
The HRTC employees gathered at respective ISBT and local bus stands in the state under the banner of Joint Coordination Committee of Himachal Pradesh Roadways Transport Corporation (HRTC) to press for their charter of demands comprising of conversion of HRTC to Roadways, enforcement of work to rule, filling of vacancies and timely release of pending dues of employees.
General Secretary of Joint Coordination Committee of HRTC employees union, Rajinder Singh Thakur considers the strike to be a success as no HRTC bus was on the road. He said that the talk failed as state government and management did not pay heed to their demands despite having given an ultimatum of state wide strike.
According Mr Thakur, there are about 3000 posts vacant in HRTC and the government is yet to release Rs 70 crore of dues pending towards employees since 2006. He added that ‘ work to rule’ should strictly be enforced in the state and the employees should not be giving duty for more than 8 hrs defying the 8 hrs of maximum duty period which could result into road accidents.
All Unions including CITU, AITUCE, INTUC and BMS were supporting the demands made by the HRTC employees.
