PRTC employees hold rally, demand regular jobs

Nikhila Pant Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, June 22

Members of the Joint Action Committee of the PRTC, comprising of five unions, today organised a gate rally at the bus stand in favour of their demands.

Since all five unions participated in the rally, it registered a huge presence of PRTC workers.

Union leader Mokam Singh said over the past few years, the state government had been ignoring the demands of the PRTC workers.

He added that this nonchalant attitude of the government had caused unrest among them.

One of the main demands is regularisation of jobs of workers who had been working on contractual basis for long, he added.

They claimed that the workers had not been paid remuneration for working overtime since September 2016.

The leaders said the contractual employees were working on meagre salaries.

Ganda Singh, another leader, said the unions had written letters to the SAD-BJP government and now to the Congress government to resume the pension scheme, but in vain.

He added that the retired PRTC workers had been fighting for their rights but they were yet to be heard.

He accused the Congress government of not keeping its promise of ending the monopoly of private transport companies and giving priority to the PRTC on state routes.

The leaders said owing to the lucrative routes given to private companies, the state-run PRTC was suffering losses to the tune of lakhs every day.

They demanded to stop the kilometer-scheme buses and profitable routes to the PRTC so that it generates revenue for the state coffers.

Meanwhile, PRTC employees belonging to the SC and BC communities also demanded that the posts lying vacant be filled and backlog for recruitment of SC-BC workers be cleared.