OU students lend support to RTC bandh

Hyderabad: Osmania University (OU) students standing in the solidarity of striking RTC employees conducted bike rally from the Arts College to NCC gate of OU and few other students had burnt government's effigy expressing their wrath on the State government, amid anti K Chandrashekar Rao slogans in the varsity campus.

Later, few agitators were arrested by the varsity police, so far, around 50 students were arrested by the noon among which there are five Congress workers, police said. Joint Commissioner of Police (law and order) D S Chauhan has inspected the situation on the campus from the OU police station.

In the support of the RTC employees' bandh, OU students' organisations consisting ABVP, TSU, SFI, AISF, TSU and PDSU participated in the shutdown and demanded that the government to merge RTC with the State government immediately. Students also alleged that extended holidays for educational institutions has disrupted academics of students in the State.

They also demanded immediate solution for RTC strike and to take steps for reopening of the educational institutions as early as possible.

Student unions also said that the demands of RTC are very reasonable such as removal of VAT tax on diesel, exempting toll gate tax and other taxes as RTC is not a commercial company but public transport system serving a huge magnitude of Telangana people, mainly in rural areas.

TSRTC running into thousands of crore losses because of heavy taxes, unrecovered dues from the State government and allowing private players in profitable routes.

Students also questioned the government's reckless attitude towards the issue when the RTC unions given a prior notice a month ago about the strike. They stated that general public consisting of school and college students, and employees mostly rely on RTC transportation.