Karnataka road transport staff withdraw strike, buses resume
Bengaluru, Dec 14: Karnataka state-owned transport corporation employees, who were on strike since December 10, called it off on Monday evening following talks with the state government.
Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha president Kodihalli Chandrashekhar, who was leading the transport agitation, announced the end to the strike at the Freedom Park here.
"We are calling off our strike as the state government has accepted nine out of 10 demands," Chandrashekhar announced.
Deputy Chief Minister Laxman Savadi, who holds the transport portfolio, expressed happiness over the development.
"I am happy that the strike has been called off.
I also greet the people of Karnataka who stood by the government," Savadi told reporters here.
The employees' key demands were compensation equivalent to the corona warriors who died in the line of duty due to COVID-19 and recognising them as government employees and salaries paid accordingly.
With no end to the strike in sight, Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Monday called a meeting with his cabinet colleagues including Savadi, Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai, Revenue Minister R Ashoka and Social Welfare Minister B Sriramulu.
Later, Savadi met with the representatives of the agitating employees.
In the minutes of the meeting released to the media, Savadi said the demand for compensation on par with corona warriors would be given.
He did not spell out anything on the second demand of the agitators to recognise them as government employees.
He , however, said the government will consider one of the demands on implementing the sixth pay commission report after taking into account its financial condition.
Following the assurance to consider paying salaries as recommended in the sixth pay commission, the protesting employees agreed to call off the strike.
"Our demand to be recognised as government employees will remain.
We are not compromising on that," Chandrashekhar told the agitating employees, many of whom had camped at the Freedom Park with their families.
Soon after the strike was called off, city bus, inter-city and inter-state bus services resumed.
According to the KSRTC and the BMTC officials, the bus services will resume fullscale from Tuesday.
Nearly 1.25 lakh employees of the various state owned transport corporations and the 33,000 Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation employees had gone one strike putting the daily commuters of Bengaluru, inter-city and inter-state passengers to hardship.
To bail out daily commuters, the government had assigned private transporters to run city buses and inter- state buses but that did not help the commuters much as they were overcharging, a few passengers told PTI.
A KSRTC Union leader K Prakash, who was part of the agitation, claimed the Sixth Pay Commission report was not among the demands.
"We had only two demands -- compensation on par with corona warriors and recognising us as government employees.
We don't know how this Sixth pay commission popped up. We also don't know how the nine demands surfaced," Prakash added.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Modified scheme to provide cashless treatment for road accident victims nationwide: Nitin Gadkari
New Delhi, Jan 8: The government will come up with a modified scheme by March to provide cashless treatment for road accident victims nationwide, under which they will be entitled to a maximum amount of Rs 1.5 lakh per accident per person, Union minister Nitin Gadkari said on Tuesday.
According to Gadkari, the scheme will be applicable to all road accidents caused by the use of motor vehicles on any category of road.
The National Health Authority (NHA) shall be the implementing agency for the programme, in coordination with police, hospitals and State Health Agency etc.
The programme will be implemented through an IT platform, combining the functionalities of the e-Detailed Accident Report (eDAR) application of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and the Transaction Management System of NHA.
"The broad contours of the pilot programme are -- victims entitled to cashless treatment up to a maximum of Rs 1.5 lakh per accident per person for a maximum period of 7 days from date of the accident," Gadkari said while addressing a press conference.
The government will come up with a modified scheme by March this year.
On March 14, 2024, the ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) had launched a pilot programme to provide cashless treatment to road accident victims.
The pilot programme -- initiated in Chandigarh -- was aimed at establishing an ecosystem for providing timely medical care to the victims of road accidents, including during the golden hour.
The pilot project was later expanded to six states.
The road transport and highways minister also said the government is studying labour laws to frame a policy for fixing working hours for commercial drivers, on the lines of pilots, as driver fatigue is resulting in fatal road crashes, Gadkari said, adding that India is facing a shortage of 22 lakh drivers.
MoRTH organised a two-day workshop on January 6, and 7, 2025 to holistically deliberate issues, solutions and next steps to be taken to help drive transformation in India's road transport sector.
During the two-day workshop, accelerating implementation of Vehicle Scrapping Policy, pan-India adoption of PUCC 2.0, timelines for introduction of BS-VII norms were discussed, along with expected reduction in pollution with the norms.
Gadkari also launched the scheme for pan-India setup of Driver Training Institutes (DTI) which provides incentives for setting up DTIs and additional incentives for integrated infrastructure of ATSs and DTIs.
The minister stressed on the introduction of specific regulations and guidelines for improving E-Rickshaw safety, given the proliferation of e-rickshaws across the country.
Gadkari said deliberations were done for introduction of Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) for trucks and strict enforcement of retro reflective tape for transport vehicle safety.
Implementation of monitoring centers & vehicle location tracking devices (VLTD) for safety of women and children were also discussed.
The meeting also discussed the launch and integration of all faceless services by the end of March 2025.
"Further, a Committee of Secretaries with representatives from States, MoRTH and NIC will work towards standardization of faceless services modules, document standardization for registration," he added.
