State president of Karnataka State Road Transport Employees Federation K.S. Sharma has urged Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai to order immediate withdrawal of a decision on privatising 41 profitable routes in the Kittur and Kalyana Karnataka regions.
The decision to urge the Chief Minister was taken at a recent emergency meeting of the representatives of the federation from the various divisional unions of North-West Karnataka which was presided over by Mr. Sharma.
In an email message to the Chief Minister, which has been released to the media, Mr. Sharma has pointed out the recent decision of Transport Minister B. Sriramulu to privatise 41 profitable routes. It has said that that the decision is in clear violation of last year’s stay order on privatising 44 routes of the region.
“The present decision to privatise 41 routes is part of a design of the State government to totally privatise public transport in the State and this will greatly harm the interests of the general public, student community and a large section of senior citizens apart from the State’s 1.30 lakh transport workers,” Mr. Sharma has said in the letter.
He has said that transport workers, students, the travelling public and other stakeholders will be forced to launch protests if the decision to privatise profitable routes is not withdrawn immediately.
General Secretary of the federation G. Prakash Murthy and representatives of Dharwad and Hubballi, Ramesh Badnur (Bagalkot), Kumkumgar and Manjunath (Haveri), Ravi Angadi (Belagavi) and representatives of Chikkodi Division took part in the meeting.
The federation has also sent letters to Mr. Sriramulu and Principal Secretary to the Department of Transport. In copies sent to the managing directors of NWKRTC and KKRTC, Mr. Sharma has urged them to obtain stay orders from the courts immediately.
