Steeped in a financial crisis, KSRTC prepares for a massive lay off. In what could affect 6000 temporary workers or the ‘M-Panel’ workers, KSRTC seems bound for a bulk dismissal of personnel who had been working with the corporation on a temporary basis for the last 10 or more years as conductors and drivers.
Earlier the Sushil Khanna report had suggested that 10,000 permanent employees of the corporation must be dismissed to save the company from the financial crisis. The recent move is being evaluated as a partial mutated implementation of the suggestion as sending home permanent employees could evoke wide protests.
At present there are at least 9,800 temporary workers under the corporation. According to the 2012 pay commission directive, temporary workers who have been in service for more than five years must be regularised. The new move comes even as protests are rife against non-regularisation even after 10 years.
It was in September that Prof. Sushil Khanna from IIM, Kolkata was appointed to study the crisis and he had come up with suggestions for reforms in the finance, operations and human resource departments to tide over the crisis.
The irony is that while the corporation seems to be making a tough call on its reforms to sail through the crisis situation where the salaries, pensions and insurance policies are in disarray, it has also initiated the process of sending advice memos for 4000 new permanent appointments for the post of conductors.