Forced to take leave in cancelled bus routes, allege MTC staff

MV Ramamoorthy, vice-president of Netaji Transport Workers Union said with the bus services on several flooded routes being cut, the drivers and conductors were being punished for it. “It is the management who decides to suspend the services in a particular route. But the staff are being marked leave in the register. If the worker did not have casual or medical leave, he would be losing pay for the day,” he alleged.

CITU-affiliated TN Transport Employees Federation general secretary K Arumuga Naianar said his union has written to the MTC management to mark such crew members in the spare attendance without deducting their leaves. “There is a practice in MTC to have spare drivers and conductors to deploy at times of emergency,” he said.

MTC sources said with many not turning up for work due to flooding, the crew members in the cancelled routes are deployed in them. “Some of the crew members who could not be accommodated are asked to avail their leaves and sent back home,” they said.