Strike a deal

Hyderabad: Pulling up the State Government for not resolving the TSRTC workers' demands which led to indefinite strike, the High Court of Telangana on Tuesday set October 18 as deadline to complete negotiations and submit a report to the court on the progress of the deliberation between RTC unions and the government.

The court asked the employees to go for talks with an open-mind and find a solution to the problem.

Reacting to the court ruling, TSRTC JAC leader Aswardhama Reddy said that they were ready for negotiations if the government invites them.

During the course of hearing of a plea on the strike, a division bench of the court comprising Justice A Rajasheker Reddy and Justice A Abhishek Reddy made some interesting observations.

It said they fail to understand how the government had not taken initiative to resolve the issue and how the employees resorted to strike causing serious inconvenience to the public.

The court questioned the government as to why it had not appointed a Managing Director and ordered the government to appoint a full-time MD in two days' time.

The court observed that employees were part of the people in society and hence the government cannot ignore them. The court said that the government should be transparent in its functioning and should see that the RTC was strengthened.

It further said that if the transport system was not strong enough it can have negative impact on investments. Gujarat and Rajasthan are getting more investments because of a strong transport system they have, the court is learnt to have commented.

The bench grilled the Additional Advocate-General J Ramchander Rao for not submitting a report on the government efforts in resolving the issue.

Expressing serious concern about the ongoing strike, the division bench of the court said that the strike had caused an inconvenience to the people in the state for the last 11 days. It told the employees that they should call off the strike and go to negotiation table.

Meanwhile, the counsel for the government informed the court that it had taken all necessary steps to see that people are not put to trouble. However, the court said that no proper data on buses being operated seems to be available.