Hyderabad: Telangana’s transport unions are gearing up for another round of protests, barely weeks after calling off a strike on government assurances, with drivers and cab operators alike saying Monday’s talks with ministers left them no closer to actual relief.
The warning came from G Mukesh Goud of the Joint Action Committee (JAC), who said drivers were preparing to hit the protest route again. “If the govt continues to delay action on these issues, auto drivers across Telangana will have to come together for a fresh agitation,” he said, after a meeting with Transport Minister Ponnam Prabhakar and Labour Minister Vivek Venkatswamy at the secretariat failed to yield firm commitments.
The frustration extended well beyond autorickshaw drivers. App-based cab unions said their wait had stretched far longer, with Satish and Sridhar Reddy of the cab JAC pointing out that their concerns had been pending for close to two and a half years. They said the government’s latest offer, of discussions with an aggregator committee, felt like another way to buy time, and that the cab JAC would meet separately soon to decide whether to call a statewide protest of its own.
According to a Times of India report, driving the anger was a growing sense that the government kept moving the goalposts on its own commitments. Ravi Shankar of the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) and Arla Sattireddy of the Telangana Auto Drivers Samakhya (TADS) said they had been told a Government Order (GO) on the long-pending auto workers’ welfare board would be issued, along with clarity on its modalities.
Instead, the unions were informed the matter would now need to be routed through the assembly. “The position keeps changing. We were expecting the GO and a discussion on the modalities, but there was not even an opportunity to submit our representation,” Ravi Shankar said.
Fare revision, one of the JAC’s oldest demands, saw no more progress. V Marayya of the Bhartiya Rickshaw Thela Union (BRTU) said the government again pushed the matter to further discussions with officials, without indicating when revised fares, unchanged since 2012, would actually take effect.
Unions were also unconvinced by the government’s response on the promised annual assistance of Rs 12,000 for drivers, a Congress election promise, after officials cited fund constraints as the reason for the delay.
Monday’s meeting comes weeks after transport unions withdrew a planned strike in August on the government’s written assurances covering the welfare board, fare revision and financial support to convert autos into electric vehicles, assurances the unions now say have gone largely unfulfilled.
