KCR should apologise to RTC staff, citizens of TS: Congress

Hyderabad: The Congress party on Friday demanded that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao tender an unconditional apology to the people of Telangana and RTC employees for the sufferings they experienced in the last two months.

All India Congress Committee (AICC) Spokesperson Dasoju Sravan, in a media statement, said that the RTC employees went on strike on October 5 with a list of 26 demands.

The main demand of the workers was merger of RTC with the State government which was also an electoral promise of Chandrashekar Rao. "

K Chandrashekar Rao stopped salaries of RTC employees for the month of September pushing them into huge financial crisis," he said.

"Nearly 30 employees died due to heart attack and about six workers committed suicide. He made senior officials lie before the High Court and created a situation wherein employees lost all their hopes.

Consequently, he forced unions to announce unconditional withdrawal of strike and two days later, he agreed to take the employees back.

While we welcome the decision of taking back the employees, we regret to say that citizens and thousands of employees suffered just because of the Chief Minister's false ego," he said.

Sravan pointed out that none of the 26 demands raised by employees have been fulfilled. Employees lost payment for at least 52 days of strike.

Nearly 30 workers lost their lives. Rao's government failed to make adequate alternate arrangements during the strike period and common people were forced to spend extra money on travelling during the last 54 days.

Now the people would be forced to pay extra 20 paisa per kilometre from December 1 onwards. On an average, RTC buses ply about 35.29 lakh kilometres per day.

Therefore, increase in fare by 20 paisa per kilo metre, the overall burden on common people will be of Rs 7.05 lakh per day or Rs 25.76 crore per annum, he said.