Single duty system at KSRTC city depot from April 1
The city depot of KSRTC at East Fort will implement single duty system from April 1. The new system is being introduced following high court directive to KSRTC to revise the duty pattern as per Motor Transport Workers Act 1961 and Kerala Motor Vehicle Workers Rules 1962.
Last year, KSRTC had revised its bus schedules to single duty, one and half duty and double duty pattern, depending upon revenue collection.
As per the MV Act, the staff will have to work for eight hours, which will be followed in the single duty pattern. KSRTC has directed the unit officers to implement single duty system for staff working in ordinary and city fast passenger buses. In the first phase, only ordinary and city fast schedules will be converted, later the fast passengers and schedules of KURTC buses are planned to be converted to single duty pattern.
There a total 108 schedules and 113 buses are operated from the depot. According to the unit officer, after the introduction of the single duty pattern, in which the duty hours are limited to 8 hours, the number of schedules will come down.
“At present, the staff ratio per bus is 2.75 at the depot. But, after implementation of single duty system, there will excess staff. We have converted around half of the total schedules to single duties and hope to complete the rest by the end of this month. The challenge is to introduce the system, retaining all the services, including the ones recommended by peoples’ representatives. Only when the single duty system is introduced in all buses, we could estimate the change in revenue,” said Mohammed Basheer, DTO at city depot.
Meanwhile, trade union affiliated to CITU has launched a protest against this decision at chief office of KSRTC in Transport Bhavan, East Fort, as the system will limit the number of leaves. Previously, the operation staff would work continuously for two single duties to avail leave.
The agitators will gherao the office of executive directors of KSRTC on Tuesday. Their other demands include implementation of the suggestions in Sushil Khanna report such as division of KSRTC into three zones and restructuring of KSRTC management.
