PRTC staff await their dues

Gagandeep Sharma

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, October 28

Drivers and conductors working with the PRTC on contract basis have not received their dues for the past ten months for performing overtime and night service as extra work.

These drivers and conductors depend highly on overtime and extra time to earn some extra money. The salary of Rs 7,875 for conductor and Rs 8,600 for driver is against the Rs 40,000-Rs 50,000 received by the regular employee of PRTC.

According to PRTC sources, the management does not have sufficient funds and payment of overtime and allowances has been pending due to this. The drivers and conductors also met the managing director of PRTC Manjeet Singh Narang during his visit to Bathinda.

They wrote to senior officials many times but to no avail. PRTC officials say they do not have sufficient funds to disburse the dues.

In the past, PRTC officials had announced extra dues for performing overtime and night duty. The announcement was made after seeing the long routes.

Sometimes, drivers and conductors have to spend the night out of station. The PRTC has started paying an extra Rs 60 per hour for performing night duty. After the announcement, they started plying buses on long routes.

As many as 491 drivers and conductors are employed with the Bathinda depot and many of them said they had not received their overtime and night allowances from December 2016. In fact, from January, they had not received a single rupee while the regular employees were receiving salary on time.

One conductor said on the condition of anonymity that they were totally dependent on overtime and night allowance because they did not have enough salary, but the management was treating them like an outsider.

“PRTC employees working on a regular basis are getting Rs 40,000-Rs 50,000 per month. The government is giving them salary every month. But our allowances are pending. Officials say they cannot do anything without funds.”

According to sources, an amount of Rs 2 crore is pending towards the PRTC.