Public transport services will be affected on Thursday as buses, autorickshaws and app-based cab services will stay off the road, following the call for a nation-wide strike against some provisions of the Road Transport and Safety Bill, 2014. Private cabs and trains will run.
At least three companies in Electronics City are providing employees with accommodation in nearby hotels and in on-campus guesthouses, large boardrooms or cafeterias on Wednesday so that they can work on Thursday, said transport industry sources.
These are mainly BPOs or KPOs, whose employees come by bus, are on “business continuity mode”, or “BCM”, which means they must work since it is business as usual for their clients in the U.S. or Europe.
One lakh people (20 per cent of them corporate employees) in the city, will be affected by the protest.
Why the protest
General secretary of Autorickshaw Drivers’ Union Rudramurthy said the proposed fines are too high. Drivers will have to pay from Rs. 500 to Rs. 1,500 as fine for consecutive signal jumps. The Motor Vehicle Act 1988 will be scrapped and State RTOs will close. Instead, a Central authority will be created and private entities will issue and renew licences. Now, the state government issues it through the RTO.
If a passenger dies, the driver has to pay Rs 1 lakh and will be jailed for four years. It also mentions “community service” which drivers are unwilling to do. He said, “Now itself, it is so tough. With the new rule, we won’t be able to live.”
H.S. Manjunath, General Secretary of the Karnataka Rajya Raste Sarige Samsthegalu Naukarara Federation, which has 15,000 members, said, “We are against the Road Transport and Safety Bill 2014. It is against the principles of jurisprudence.” State Road Transport Corporations are being corporatized but KSRTC is a public service. “It operates in villages where it is not profitable. Will the new law allow that,” he asked.
