KSRTC suffers setback on reforms over duty pattern

Kochi: The Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) has suffered a setback in its efforts to implement a new duty pattern reform with the High Court asking it to “convene a meet with employee unions” to take them into confidence and work out a duty pattern in line with the provisions of the Motor Transport Workers Act, 1961. On July 15 last, the management had implemented a new duty pattern reform under which six-and-a-half steering hours will be treated as one duty, 10 steering hours one-and-a-half duty and 13 hours as two duty.

A staffer needed to work 13 hours instead of 10 hours for a work hour to be considered as a double duty. Trade unions protested against the initiative under which a duty that fetches a collection of upto Rs 10,000 is considered a single duty while those with earning of upto Rs 12,000 is taken as a one-and-a-half duty.  One of the two recognised unions, Transport Democratic Federation (TDF) moved court against the move.

A High Court Bench in its recent judgment, directed the KSRTC managing director to “hear the views of all the parties concerned, deliberate upon the issues, adhering to the provisions of the Motor Transport Workers Act 1961 and pass appropriate orders within a period of three weeks from the date on which such a meeting is held and concluded.” As per the Motor Transport Workers Act, 1961, employees have to take only an eight-hour duty with 30 minutes of rest in between. Later double duty system was introduced for the crew working for 15 hours at a stretch. In that case, double the wages had to be given for every extra hour of work after the eight hours.