KSRTC salary delay: Left unions blame management | Thiruvananthapuram News

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THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) has failed to pay the salaries for the month of March to its employees after close to half of April has passed. The employees will have to celebrate Vishu and probably, Easter as well, without salaries unless the government provides enough funds. KSRTC needs Rs 80 crore for paying the salaries for a month and it has sought Rs 75 crore from the government, but the finance department has sanctioned only Rs 30 crore, with which the KSRTC management has not been able to disburse the salaries. Even the Rs 30 crore sanctioned on Wednesday has not reached KSRTC’s account. The public utility had disbursed the salaries for the last month by taking an overdraft to the tune of Rs 5o crore from the bank. The salaries were given as part payments. The government had given Rs 202 crore in April for the repayment of various loans taken by KSRTC and hence, the finance department was not ready to sanction the Rs 75 crore demanded by the state utility for the disbursement of March salaries. The management is of the view that the frequent increase in the fuel prices have lowered the revenue of KSRTC. The daily revenue collection had gone up to Rs 5. 5 crore, but the corporation is yet to make a profit since the fuel prices have been increasing on a daily basis. The Left trade unions in KSRTC are however blaming the management for the crisis. The Kerala State Road Transport Employees Association (CITU) and the Kerala State Transport Employees Union (AITUC) have launched indefinite protests before the central office of the KSRTC. While the AITUC observed a ‘black day’ on Thursday, the CITU kicked off an indefinite relay dharna. The unions have threatened to go for an indefinite fast and a token strike on April 28. “It is nothing but mismanagement and lack of efficiency from the part of the KSRTC management that had led to the present crisis. If the management is unable to provide the salaries, then they should resign and go,” said CK Harikrishnan, general secretary of KSRTEA. We have been supporting all the initiatives taken by the management even during the pandemic. But after the pandemic subsided, instead of increasing the fleet of buses and its services, the management has been playing gimmicks to ‘show’ that the corporation is plunging into a crisis, he said. The management had promised us to pay the salaries before fifth of every month and it has violated this assurance, said Harikrishnan.

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