The passengers across Punjab faced a lot of inconvenience on Monday during the one-day strike of contractual employees associated with state owned Punjab Roadways services.
As per the information, the agitating employees did not let resume the buses of Punjab Roadways and Punbus services across the state including, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Ferozepur, Moga and Jalandhar.
Due to this, the passengers were forced to opt for private buses of taxis while paying extra fare. Nearly 3,000 contractual employees of the Punjab Roadways and the Punbus are on strike and around 1,900 buses off the roads.
Bus services on the inter-state routes and within the state were affected.
According to roadways employees, they have held several meetings with the state government authorities to resolve the issue, but the government has not moved even a single step to resolve the issue, thus forcing them to go on strike.
Vice president of Road Transport Workers Federation, Chander Shekhar said that the contractual employees associated with state owned roadways services have been demanding for regularisation since long. “Neither the previous or the present government paid any heed to our demands. We will continue to fight for our rights,” he said.
He added that protesters have been demanding regularisation of services, hike in salaries and implementation of the Supreme Court ruling of equal work and equal pay.
He said a number of meetings had been held with the senior authorities of the transport department with regard to their demands, but nothing had been done yet.
Protesting employees even blocked the entry and exit points of some bus stands from 12 noon to 2 p.m. to prevent the movement of buses.
Earlier also, the Roadways employees had observed a one-day strike on 21 February, causing a lot of inconvenience to the commuters.
Similarly, the Punjab Roadways Joint Action Committee, Rainder Singh said, “In past six months we have held a number of meetings with the senior authorities in the Transport department. We even met the Transport Minister on 21 May to apprise him about our demands. Every time we were just given assurances, so we have decided to go on strike.”
The demands of contractual transport employees include regularisation of their services on seniority basis, increasing salaries of contractual staff, implementing SC ruling of equal work equal pay, implementing the sixth pay commission recommendations, inclusion of 596 debt-free Punbus along with their staff in Punjab Roadways, curbing corruption, appropriate shifts for private and roadways buses, increasing the fleet of buses.