HRF supports RTC workers strike
The Human Rights Forum is extending it’s wholehearted support to the striking workers of the TSRTC who are demanding the incorporation of the RTC with the government and raising other demands.
Education, health and public transport are the sovereign functions of the State. People cannot be inert. They have to move from one place to the other on their daily chores.It is their right to movement, a human right, part and parcel of the right to life and thus a Constitutional right.
Efficacy of public transport organisation should not and cannot be measured on the basis of profit it earned. However, as far ascthe TSRTC is concerned it is the policies of the Government that are the direct cause for losses. The government does not clear the areas periodically. There are large sums of arrears to be cleared by the government, which fact the government does not deny and these arrears run into thousands of crores of rupees. The government does not permit the RTC to increase the fares on par with the fuel price escalation. The government is lethargic or a mere spectator or sometimes facilitator to the private operators to run the contract carriages as stage carriages. Such acts adversely affect the profit making capacity of the RTC and therefore the government should take over the TSRTC and run it as one of its departments.
As long as the Govt does not find a solution to the strike it continues to infringe the people’s right to movement.
The Telangana state government should keep side it’s ego and immediately call the representatives of the unions to find a solution to end the strike and thus revive the People’s right to movement.
Gorrepati Madhava Rao
President
Human Rights Forum(HRF)
Telangana state
