HRTC pensioners seek disbursal of pensions, dues

Up in arms against irregular disbursal of monthly pensions, the Himachal Road Transport Corporation (HRTC) Retired Employees Welfare Manch, Nurpur zone, convened its monthly meeting at Jassur today and expressed its anguish over the failure of the HRTC management for timely disbursal of their monthly service pensions. The meeting was presided over by Kripal Pathania, state vice-president of the manch.

The office-bearers and speakers who addressed the meeting expressed resentment over non-disbursal of monthly pensions for April till today. The members lamented that irregular disbursal of pensions by the HRTC management had disrupted their retired life as most of them had no source of livelihood except monthly service pension.

Kripal Pathania, while addressing pensioners, said as many as 200 HRTC employees who had retired in March last year were neither given their monthly pension nor their retirement dues. “The payment of medical bills submitted by the pensioners to the management two-and-half years ago have not received medical reimbursement. The arrears of new pay-scale have also not been disbursed by the HRTC management whereas pensioners of other government departments have received two instalments,” he lamented.

He said Brij Lal, president of the state HRTC Retired Employees Welfare Manch, had chalked out future course of action under the banner of Joint Action Committee. The manch also appealed to Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu to bail out the HRTC from the present financial mess. —