Telangana Government proposes to spend Rs 1,000 crore for RTC

Hyderabad: Telangana government has proposed to spend Rs 1,000 crore for the cash-strapped Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) this year.

Finance Minister T Harish Rao said that TSRTC which is meeting public transport requirements was slowly treading into profitable path due to mitigation measures taken up by the government.

Though the RTC is yet to start the cargo, the Finance Minister said that the Corporation has started cargo and parcel services.

The minister further said that government took a decision to enhance the retirement age of RTC employee to 60 years. Apart from this, the government constituted Employee Welfare Board to resolve the issues of RTC employees.

However, the RTC unions have said that the government should provide grant of Rs 1,000 crore.

The chief minister during a meeting with the RTC employees in Pragathi Bhavan had assured to provide a grant of Rs 1,000 crore but the budget says proposing to spend Rs 1,000 crore.

During the previous year government proposed to spend Rs 1,000 crore but released just Rs 200 crore.

The Union leaders said that as promised, the government should provide Rs 1,000 crore as grant and additional Rs 600 crore as reimbursement for bus passes.

The government declared that cargo services were started but in fact the services are yet to get started and there private lobby was pressurising the government not to go for cargo services, said the Employees Union leader E Babu demanding the government to start cargo services immediately.

The union leaders have condemned the formation of Welfare Board stating that this was an effort to remove the trade unions in the Corporation.

The Staff Workers Federation has demanded government to allocate Rs 1,900 crore including the reimbursement of bus passes.