Though the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) is mandated to provide public transport facility up to 30 km from the city's periphery, its employees posted in depots outside the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) limits are taking home a lesser salary than their counterparts in depots located inside the city.
If an employee is posted in the depots of Jigani, Electronics City (Suryanagar), Seegehalli and Bidadi, which are not within the limits of the BBMP, he gets house rent allowance at the rate of only 5 per cent and does not get the city compensatory allowance. On the other hand, his counterparts posted within BBMP limits continue to get HRA at 20 per cent of the basic and the CCA from Rs. 150 to Rs. 300 a month depending upon the pay scale, as well.
The order
The BMTC management issued an order to this effect on April 26 citing a government order dated October 31 to this effect. The worst part of the order is that the corporation is recovering the HRA and CCA already paid to about 3,000 employees posted in these depots with effect from October 2009.
Protest
Terming the corporation's move unscientific and discriminatory, the Karnataka State Transport Corporations Employees Federation on Tuesday threatened to stage a massive protest on June 25 if BMTC does not rescind the April 26 order.
Federation honorary president S. Prasanna Kumar told presspersons here that employees in these depots would not only lose Rs. 1,500 to Rs. 3,000 a month in the coming days, but will also have to face deduction from their salaries of an equivalent amount at least for the next eight to 10 months. If an employee is posted in a depot outside the Palike limits, it does not mean that he resides in the locality itself. Moreover, the order might give scope for the corporation to penalise or harass a particular employee by way of posting him to these depots, he feared.
Management concerned
When contacted, BMTC Managing Director Syed Zameer Pasha told The Hindu that the employees have already represented to the management about their grouse. “Their demand is genuine and the corporation board in its next meeting will seriously consider the demand,” Mr. Pasha said. The only hurdle has been the Government Order which specified the quantum of HRA and payment of CCA, he said hoping that the board could find some solution to address the issue.
