Telangana Chief Minister KCR said the transport employees had been misguided by union leaders
After taking a tough stance on the 52-day strike by Telangana Road Transport Corporation employees, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao on Thursday welcomed them back and said they could join duty from Friday. He did not impose any conditions for their return.
The Telangana Chief Minister said they had been misguided by union leaders and said he would marginally increase passenger fares as a step towards minimising losses of the corporation.
Mr Rao, also known as KCR, said he could go for privatisation and nothing could stop him but he considered the employees as children of the state and he was concerned about them.
This should come as music to the ears of nearly 50,000 workers who were driven to the brink of hopelessness, desperation and frustration with no salary for over two months and little hope of getting back their job.
The workers were on a 52-day strike after 26 demands put forth by them were not met by the corporation. That included a demand to merge the corporation with the government as was done in Andhra Pradesh.
But even after the workers gave up on those demands, they were not allowed to return to work on Tuesday. Heavy police deployment at depots across the state stopped them from entering the very depots where the workers had served.
At least three RTC employees have committed suicide and seven others have died of a heart attack since the strike began.