Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday assured that the KSRTC employees would be paid their full dues by Tuesday.
The decision to distribute the pending dues for the month of July and August was arrived at a meeting held by the CM with representatives of TDF (INTUC), CITU and BMS.
The government also informed that arrangements will be made to distribute the salary before the 5th of every month.
The Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) had on Monday distributed 75 per cent of pending salary for the month of July to its employees ahead of the meeting.
The salary was distributed to 24,477 permanent employees.
The outstanding dues were distributed to conductors, drivers, mechanics and ministerial workers. ATO, DTO and station masters are yet to receive their salaries. The KSRTC requires Rs 82 crore for salaries alone a month.
Single duty system
Meanwhile, the government wants KSRTC to implement the single duty system and has said that once that is put in place, a Rs 250-crore rescue package could be allotted.
While the trade unions disagreed to a 12-hour-long single duty system proposed by the government, they have agreed to consider an 8-hour system. The Chief Minister has agreed to conduct further talks on the matter, Union representatives informed.
In the present scenario, a duty lasting 16 hours is considered as double-duty and employees get an off from work the following day. But under the proposed single-duty arrangement, 12 hours would be taken as a single duty. The remaining four hours, which is considered as extra work, would fetch employees double the basic pay and dearness allowance.
Transport Minister slammed
The CITU had slammed Transport Minister Antony Raju for not communicating their issues to the Chief Minister.
“We shall not accept the coupon system in place of payment at any cost,” the union said while referring to the alternative proposed by KSRTC.
A quarter lakh KSRTC employees and their families were struggling to meet their day-to-day expenses with more than two months of outstanding salary.
The KSRTC will settle the dues partially utilising Rs 50 crore allotted by the Government and Rs 10 crore in hand.
