Tamil Nadu - Madurai   

Forum against privatisation move

— Photo: S. James

UP IN ARMS: Members of the CITU staging a demonstration in the city on Thursday.

MADURAI: The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) has flayed the State Government’s proposal to privatise the maintenance section in the State Transport Corporations, alleging that it was an indirect move to privatise the Corporations.

On one hand the Transport Minister promised that the Corporations would not be privatised but on the other hand a series of decisions are being taken against the interests of the Corporations, its State general secretary A. Soundararajan said.

Addressing a protest meeting here on Thursday, he said that the Minister proposed to give permit for 3,500 more mini buses that would eat into the business of Corporations. The Corporation bus drivers were being forced to show “impossible” fuel efficiency that forced them to drive the buses slower. “At the same time, the conductors were pulled up for poor collection. This rule is only making the Corporation buses lose their competitiveness to the private players,” Mr. Soundararajan said.

Stating that the main objective of the daily, weekly and monthly maintenance in Transport Corporations is not to repair the vehicles, but take up preventive maintenance to ensure that the buses did not break down in midway, Mr. Soundararajan said giving the maintenance section on contract will ruin the buses. It would jeopardise the lives of road users.

The tenders inviting contracts in maintenance section came at a time when the Minister promised to recruit 10,000 workers, he said.

He also criticised the anti-labour policies of the Transport Corporations that forced drivers to work for more than the stipulated hours, denied pensioners their commutation and for not implementing the agreed welfare measures. The CITU leader called upon the workers to get ready for agitation if their demands were not met.

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