PRTC staff protest troubles commuters
Commuters had a rough ride across the state as Pepsu Road Transport Corporation (PRTC) and Punbus Employees Unions staged outside the new bus stand in Patiala.
Sharing details, the state president of the PRTC Contractual Employees Union, Harkesh Vicky, said Transport Minister Laljit Singh Bhullar had promised that he would organise a meeting on October 22 in Chandigarh to address the demands of the union.
He said, “However, the minister did not turn up for the meeting, following which it was decided to stage a protest,” said Vicky. “Our demands are simple. We urge the government to regularise all contractual staff, pay parity of staff, remove draconian guidelines, and abolish the hiring of staff through contractors,” he added.
He said the state government has introduced a new rule, according to which if passengers were found travelling without a ticket on four occasions during surprise ticket checking, then the conductor, a contractual employee, would be sacked on the charge of committing fraud.
Another leader of the union, Sehajpal Singh Sandhu, said, “We have been fighting for our demands for a long time. On July 1, we had a meeting with the Chief Minister in Jalandhar, where he acknowledged that our demands were valid and formed a committee to address them. However, it has been over three months and no decision has been made on our demands so far.”
The secretary of the union, Jasdeep Singh Lalli, said the PRTC has 1,200 government buses and Punjab Roadway around 1,600. He said for the past three years no new bus has been added to the PRTC fleet. Furthermore, the government has been paying taxes on routes totalling 5,000 km every month, where no bus is plying due to the shortage of vehicles.”
A Hira Bagh Colony resident, Rajesh Modgil, said he was travelling to Zirakpur. He said when he reached the new bus stand, he found many passengers were either taking private buses or using alternative modes of transport.
Gurpreet Kaur, who works at an immigration office and commutes daily to Mohali, said women were the worst hit due to the non-availability of buses during the morning.
