Govt apathy, pvt syndicate bleeding Uttarakhand Transport Corporation- Chaudhary
Tuesday, 15 October 2024 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The Uttarakhand transport corporation employees’ joint federation has accused the management of Uttarakhand Transport Corporation (UTC) of gross negligence and apathy due to which the syndicate of private operators is hurting the interests of the corporation. Addressing a press conference here on Monday, the convenor of the federation Ashok Chaudhary said that counters have been allotted to the private buses at Kashmiri Gate and Anand Vihar in New Delhi alongside the UTC. He said that these operators are charging upto Rs 3,300 from one passenger on Delhi- Dehradun route. He said that the government is planning to open more routes for the private operators which will result in steep decline in the income of the UTC and the government will lose revenue worth Rs 200 Crore. At present about 20 welfare schemes of the government are being operated through the buses of the UTC.
Chaudhary said that the UTC was set up in 2003 and at that time it had 7,300 regular employees and 950 buses. The corporation now has about 2,000 regular, 300 contractual and 500 outsource employees. Government has not regularised employees working from 15 to 18 years due to which the staff strength of the corporation has reduced drastically. Chaudhary further informed that the fleet of the corporation has only 800 buses now and out of them about 500 buses will soon be auctioned. In the last four years the government has purchased only 130 small buses. He said that after the end of relaxation given by the Delhi government to Euro IV buses in December this year, the corporation will have only 170 under contract CNG fuelled buses for its Delhi operations. Chaudhary demanded that the government should immediately purchase 500 new buses to save the UTC. Accusing the UTC management of being extravagant, Chaudhary said that furniture worth Rs 1.5 crore was purchased for the headquarters of corporation and a sum of Rs seven crore was spent on new construction in headquarters but the corporation has no budget to pay the gratuity of six months of retired employees and four per cent dearness allowance (DA) of the employees.
Chaudhary added that the corporation is earning about Rs 1.5 crore daily while its expenses are at Rs two crore per day and the UTC has failed to prepare a work plan to come into profit.
