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For the retired staffs of transport corporations in TN, Rs 1093 crores sanctioned now
Posted on: 21/Aug/2019 10:08:09 AM
Retired employees of state transport corporations of TN have now got superb news to rejoice. There are 5500 retired employees belonging to the state transport corporations in TN.
The latest information is the government had sanctioned an amount of Rs 1093 crores towards the pending terminal benefits of these retired employees. The transport department issued orders on sanctioning the amount in one go on 13th August 2019 and this was after several court cases and repeated protests.
It must be taken into account that TN has got 8 STUs or state transport undertakings. This includes MTC or Metropolitan Transport Corporation of Chennai, SETC or Sate Express Transport Corporation and TNSTC or Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation, Villupuram that employs 14 lakh staffs. Information gathered is there are 56000 drivers and 54000 conductors employed by the state transport. Across these corporations, on an average 700 to 1000 employees retire and fresh persons are recruited every month.
At the time of retirement it is norm to settle terminal benefits including PF, gratuity, earned leave salary etc. This never happened in the recent times and many staffs faced issues. Information is this was one of the reasons why the transport employees went on strikes in 2018. For disbursing the pending amount in different instalments, the High Court of Madras intervened is known.
Point is as of June employees who retired in or before November 2017 got their benefits but others waited for the official announcement. There were allegations from the transport unions that the corporations had spent the savings of the employees on daily operation. In addition to this, reduced patronage and high ticket rates have resulted in huge losses of atleast Rs 2800 crores every year.
In the recent budget session, deputy chief minister of TN, Mr. O. Paneerselvam grabbed the attention when he announced that amount of Rs 1093 crores has been ear marked in the supplementary estimates towards pending terminal benefits of employees who retired in the time between April 2018 and March 2019. The point is the amount has been sanctioned as a short term loan to the 8 STUs.
This move from the government to sanction Rs 1093 crores has been appreciated by the transport unions. It was later mentioned by Mr. K. Anbalagan, SVS-AAP union that many retired employees are dependent on this amount (Rs 10 lakhs to Rs 15 lakhs) to the meet expenses like their children’s marriage and their health etc.
It was brought out by Mr. Arumugam Nainar of CITU that permanent solution would be to earmark money towards this component during the annual budgetary allocation. Another 2000 employees who retired after March 2019 would have to wait now and this was as per Mr. Shanmugam of Labour Progressive Front.
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