The Odisha State Road Transport Corporation (OSRTC) continues to be a loss-making public transport corporation without any scope of development due to government apathy, mismanagement and tacit promotion of private passenger bus operators, alleged OSRTC Staff Federation.
In a press meet in Berhampur on Thursday, members of Berhampur unit of the federation said they may disrupt bus services if their demands were not fulfilled by end of March. They pointed out that in comparison to public transport corporations in other States, the OSRTC has too less buses. The number of buses of the OSRTC is only 460 and out of them 85 are off road due to various reasons. As per the norms, 2,200 employees are needed to run these buses but OSRTC is managing with only 1,531 personnel, who are mostly contractual employees.
Despite serving OSRTC for two decades, these contractual staffs have not been regularised, alleged president of Berhampur unit of federation, Upendranath Mishra. The monthly payments of OSRTC for contractual drivers, conductors and mechanical helpers are just Rs.7,400, Rs.6,400 and Rs.5,300 respectively. “Yet they are not getting the full payment as money is being deducted from their small salaries in the name of losses due to technical snags like bursting of tyres or mechanical breakdowns,” said federation general secretary Arun Kumar Padhi.
He also added”The buses are not properly maintained for lack of mechanical maintenance staff”.
Prasanta Patnaik