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MPSRTC staff not paid for six months

Rahul Singh in Bhopal

A large chunk of 20,500 odd employees of government-owned Madhya Pradesh State Transport Corporation has not received salaries since the past six months.

The employees who have not received their salaries are from MPSRTC's six divisions - Gwalior, Jabalpur, Indore, Raipur, Bilaspur and Rewa.

The employees of Indore and Jabalpur divisions are only slightly more fortunate; their salary arrears are pending only for three months.

Employees from Jabalpur division have already launched an agitation seeking early payment of their wages. They have given an ultimatum to the MPSRTC management to pay the wages by July 14, failing which they plan to intensify the agitation.

Some of employees of Jabalpur are camping outside the MPSRTC headquarters at Bhopal to highlight their plight.

The agitating employees say that due to the non-payment of salaries they are facing acute financial hardships. "The New academic session has already begun, but we don't have money to pay children's fees," says Dev Narain Tiwari, the president of Jabalpur division's employee union.

Others complain that they are on the verge of starvation as the moneylenders refuse to give them credit any more.

The MPRSTC managing director K Suresh is aware of the problem, but not the solution. The problem had arisen, he said, because the public sector undertaking is overstaffed.

The MPSRTC has 14 employees to man each bus. To maintain a healthy balance it should not have more three persons on each bus, he said.

Suresh said the corporation needed Rs 140 million to clear the pending wages. It is also lagging behind in payment of provident fund dues and employees state insurance installments. It would require a whopping Rs 650 million for that.

With poor services and dishonest staff most bus services of MPSRTC are running in a loss. Recently the corporation sacked 90 conductors for pilferage.

Although employees of all the six divisions are facing the problem, lack of unity among them has hampered launch of a unified agitation. There are 32 employees unions in the corporation.

The Federation of Transport Workers of Jabalpur division is carrying out the present demonstration.

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