Adamant attitude of RTC unions & Govt angers HC

Hyderabad: The efforts of the state government to present a status report to the High Court stating that it was the unions which did not come for talks and hence the logjam could not be resolved seems to have backfired.

The High Court on Monday took serious note of the stubborn attitude of the Government as well as the RTC worker unions. Additional Advocate-General of the RTC said the JAC leaders forced the management to hold talks on all their demands, including merger of TSRTC with the state government but JAC leaders declined to discuss the 21 demands as suggested by the HC and walked out of the meeting abruptly.

State Advocate-General (AG) BS Prasad informed the court that the government will have to find financial resources to address 16 demands out of 21 raised by the unions.

Currently, the Corporation was not in a position to provide financial assistance for the workers' demands. The Court asked whether the government is ready to allocate Rs 50 crore to provide an immediate relief to the crisis-hit corporation.

In a quick response, the AG said that the government was not in a good position to rescue the corporation from the financial trouble.

Unhappy with the AG's arguments, the division bench said it will not hesitate to summon state Chief Secretary SK Joshi and top finance officials to the court on the economic related issues.

It also took objection as to why the government had not submitted the reports of executive directors of the RTC to the court.

On the other hand, TSRTC JAC advocate Prakash said the RTC officials had misinterpreted the High Court's directives in the negotiations.

RTC officials made it clear that they would discuss only about 21 demands and not other demands. At this point the court asked the union leaders to be logical while making their demands to the state government.

It observed that the adamant attitude of both sides was resulting in great inconvenience to the common people. They asked both sides to find an amicable solution.

The court observed the demand for the merger of RTC with the government has become a major hurdle to move forward in the talks initiated between the government and RTC unions. The court instructed the government to present a status report on the debts the government owed to the RTC on Tuesday.

Presenting the arguments, the counsel for the employees union informed the court that there was nothing wrong in discussing all the demands, irrespective of the fact that whether the RTC management would solve them or not.

He also briefed the court that the corporation was incurring losses to the tune of Rs 2.5 crore every day on account of subsidised bus passes. He said that the GHMC has to pay Rs 4,967 crore for operating buses in Hyderabad.