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Hyderabad, 25 April. After being on strike for three days, Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TGSRTC) employees returned to work from Saturday. After about 15 hours of discussions, an agreement was reached between the government and TGSRTC employee unions at midnight on Friday, ending the strike that had been going on since April 22. TGSRTC Vice Chairman and Managing Director Y. Nagireddy said the talks were successfully concluded and the unions agreed to end the strike. Bus services across the state are scheduled to resume from the first shift on Saturday morning, bringing the public transport system back to normal.

He said that an important thing about this agreement is that the government has taken a positive decision on the long standing demand of merging RCT with the state government. Its modalities and technical aspects will be finalized soon. An official committee of government representatives and labor leaders has been formed to take this process forward. The government has also agreed to implement the Pay Revision Commission (PRC) 2021. Under this, keeping in mind both the welfare of the employees and the financial condition of the corporation, an increase of 11 percent has been announced in the salary of RTC employees.

In another major decision, the government has approved the resumption of trade unions and will help in conducting democratic elections to give recognition to the union. Necessary guidelines for the elections will be decided in consultation with the employee unions. Deputy Chief Minister Bhatti Vikramarka said the government considers RTC as a “family” and has taken a sympathetic and constructive approach to solving the problems of employees. He appealed to the employees to cooperate in taking the organization towards profit.

Meanwhile, Transport Minister Ponnam Prabhakar said that the strike has been officially called off and directed the employees to immediately return to their duties. During the meeting, ministers, officials and union leaders observed a two-minute silence in memory of Shankar Gaur, the Narsampet depot driver who committed suicide. The government announced an ex-gratia of Rs 10 lakh to the victim’s family along with a house and a job to one member of the family under the Indiramma scheme.

The Joint Action Committee (JAC) met Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, Deputy Chief Minister Bhatti Vikramarka and other ministers for fulfilling the long pending demands. JAC has also called upon the employees to celebrate this solution at the depot. The corporation expressed regret for the inconvenience caused to passengers in the last three days and assured that 100 percent bus operations will be restored from Saturday morning.