Indian bus workers strike against privatisation

 

Indian bus workers strike against privatisation

By
Arun Kumar

19 April 2017

Trade unions last Thursday called off a transport workers’ strike that had for three days halted public bus services across the northern Indian state of Haryana. After backroom talks, the state government “promised” to temporarily halt permits for new private bus operators and reinstate the 120 workers who were sacked for going on strike without notice.

Due to the halting of the strike, there remains a threat that the government will proceed with privatisation moves in a modified form, with the complicity of the trade unions.

Every day more than 1.3 million passengers travel in the buses of the state-owned Roadways transport service. About 4,200 buses, including 39 luxury ones, mostly plying between Gurugram and Chandigarh, came to a halt as a result of the strike. The Hindu-supremacist Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP) state government took repressive measures, including the sacking of at least five workers from each of 24 depots, and deployed police to intimidate strikers.

As a result of talks between state officials and unions, the government agreed to repeal a new transport policy that allows fresh new private operators. Under the privatisation measures announced in February, the transport department received 1,669 new applications for permits for bus operations. Transport workers fear the expanding private bus service will affect their jobs.

Haryana Transport Minister Krishan Panwar declared that the government would withdraw the issuance of new permits. However, it refused to cancel permits granted earlier to 853 buses for 273 routes in the state.

Media outlets reported that the state government would frame a new transport policy that would incorporate suggestions by the Regional…

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