Nagpur : City bus service in the city was partially affected on Tuesday following an indefinite strike called by bus conductors associated with Security and Intelligence Services (SIS) agency to press for their monthly wages.
The agency officials blamed Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) for the salary default as civic body has not cleared their payment.
“The strike resulted into Aapli Bus service being affected on Pardi, Hingna and Defence routes,” said chairman of NMC transport committee Bunty Kukde.
The service ran normally on other routes where Unity Infrastructure’s conductors were on duty. “All 230-odd conductors went on strike affecting operations of 69 buses on various routes. Students and office-goers were among the worst hit,” said Kukde.
“We have served a show-cause notice to the firm and we will recover operational loss from them,” he said. SIS conductors, requesting anonymity, told they were being paid their salaries very late every month and the agency also recovered penalties imposed by the NMC from their salary.
The drivers were getting their salaries promptly by ninth of every month, they pointed out. The agency had also collected security deposits from conductors estimated at around Rs 57 lakh. While it can collect Rs 6000 each the agency had taken between Rs 10,000 and Rs12,000 and also not provided any receipt, said sources.
Even though default charges have been levied on SIS and warnings issued to overcome the shortcomings the former has not taken any remedial steps.The firm has also failed to deposit statutory payments like provident fund, ESI etc for conductors, sources said. SIS had also not paid any bonus to the conductors.
Kukde said termination notice had been served on the agency. “We are trying to hand over entire job to Unity Infrastructure,” he said.
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