Thiruvananthapuram: The State's Finance department on Monday approved Rs 30 crore to the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) for clearing salary dues.
The approval comes on the back of a letter that had been submitted by the KSRTC MD to the Finance department requesting Rs 65 crore to pay the salaries of employees.
The Finance department, however, is yet to take a call on disbursing the remaining amount. KSRTC had received Rs 30 crore assistance from the department in May as well.
However, officials with KSRTC said the amount approved was not enough to begin disbursing the salaries of the employees.
Meanwhile, various employee trade unions of the KSRTC began their agitation against the management on Monday seeking salary disbursal. The unions had informed the management earlier itself that they would go on agitation if the latter did not give salary before the 5th of this month.
Earlier, the KSRTC management had announced its intention to pay incentives to those employees who work overtime. Employees who take up 20 duties per month would be eligible for an incentive of Rs 1,000. Those who take up 25 duties per month may even get an incentive of Rs 2,000.
The management issued a circular the other day that only those employees who took 16 duties per month would be given salary on time.
The progress report of the second Pinarayi Vijayan government had promised timely payment of KSRTC employees' salaries and clearing of dues.
The government, in the report, assured implementation of pay revision and steps for executing the recommendations of the Sushil Khanna report on revival, modernisation and restructuring of the KSRTC.
The government also promised to repay the bank consortium loans till KSRTC becomes self-sustainable.
