Nagpur: The Maharashtra Government has finally intervened to resolve the ongoing strike by contractual staff of Aapli Bus in Nagpur by revising the minimum wages payable. The employees had been on strike since October 3 for the demand of the implementation of a 2015 GR that would substantially raise their wages.
On Monday, the Department of Industry, Labour, and Mining issued a notification regarding the revision of minimum wages applicable to drivers and conductors going forward. “The revision is quite favourable and satisfactory for our members,” said Vivek Wankhade and Rakesh Ghosekar of the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, who were spearheading the strike along with two other unions.
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Tue14 Oct. 2024
According to the GR, employees are categorised into Class A and Class B Municipal Corporations in the State. For Class A corporations, drivers’ salaries will be Rs 19,625, while for Class B corporations, it will be Rs 18,975. Efforts to resolve the strike, which had been troubling citizens at the local level, failed as the four operators appointed by the Nagpur Municipal Corporation to run the city bus service — with a fleet of over 300 buses — refused to raise wages, citing financial constraints.
The matter also reached the courts, with the NMC seeking to restrain employees from continuing the strike. Previously, the head of the Transport Department stated that the responsibility for the salary hike lies with the operators. However, the operators insist on increasing the payments they receive while simultaneously raising salaries. Consequently, a demand has now been made for the Municipal Corporation to increase salaries.
Some officials from the organisations believe that, according to the 2015 GR, the minimum salary was set at Rs 15,000. After changes were made to the GR five years later, the minimum salary (basic) was raised to Rs 18,000 in the 2020 GR. Under this new framework, drivers should have been earning around Rs 22,000 and conductors around Rs 20,000, but in reality, drivers and conductors were only receiving between Rs 12,000 and Rs 14,000. This discrepancy is what led to the initiation of the strike. Now, in the new GR, the basic salary has not increased by even Rs 1,000.
