Observing that the government could not shy away from the responsibility of providing further financial support to the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC), the Kerala High Court on Thursday asked the State government and the KSRTC to make every effort to ensure that the employees of the corporation are paid the salary for June by July 26.
Justice Devan Ramachandran, while hearing cases seeking payment of salary and pensions on time, observed that the intervention of the government was inevitable. The government could not rest the entire responsibility on the management of the KSRC alone, particularly when the government had said that its closure was not thought of by it.
If the KSRTC was to be kept float, financial support of the government was inevitable at least in the short term. It could not shy away from such a responsibility on any grounds, including that it was a corporation or such other thing. Though the KSRTC was a corporation, it was still under the control of the Transport Minister when it came to policy decisions. It would be puerile to imagine that the director board of the corporation could take decisions that would have far-reaching consequences. The responsibility of the government has become manifest because it was the government which has to formulate policies, decisions, and strategies to guide the KSRTC out of the financial constraints, the court said.
The court asked the State government to think carefully about how the wide gap between the income generated and expenditure in the corporation could be bridged.
It observed that at least for a short period, the intervention of the government was inevitable to pay the salary, especially when the government had already taken over the burden of paying the pension to retired KSRTC employees.
Biju Prabhakar, CMD of the KSRTC, who appeared online, submitted that that ₹30 crore released by the government for the payment of salary was “woefully insufficient” and further amount was required. In fact, it had taken up the issue with the Finance Ministry. The corporation would be able to pay the salaries with the government assistance in a couple of days. It had also appointed consultants to work out the monetisation of its landed properties.
The court could not allow employees to go hungry and the salary had to be paid, it reminded the stakeholders.
The court posted the cases for July 26 for furthering hearing.
