Chennai: People, particularly those relying on state government bus services could face hardship from Monday as employees of various Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation bus services have threatened to go on an indefinite strike. Opposition backed trade unions of transport employees have warned that their strike will affect normalcy in the state and are now churning out strategies to make the bandh a huge success.
“There are about 1.40 lakh state government transport employees and a major chunk of them will participate in the strike, affecting bus services across the state,” said Arumutgham Nainar, general secretary, CITU. In Chennai, there are about 3,000 bus services plying and at least 2,000 services would be off the road. Pointing out that state government had failed to look into employees’ welfare, he said people who have retired from service are yet to get their pension and retirement benefits since 2012.
“A decision to support the strike was taken at a joint meeting of the unions in which all except the ruling AIADMK backed Anna Thozhir Sangam, reached a consensus. We will not allow buses to be operated on Monday,” said LPF general secretary M. Shanmugham. office- bearers of the AIADMK trade unions are orking overtime shuttling to annul the effects of the strike called by other trade unions.
