Not long ago, the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation had been in the news for wrong reasons, with more than 48,000 employees being sacked from their jobs for going on indefinite strike demanding wage revision and merger of RTC with the government.
But their 55-day long strike did not yield any results, as the Telangana government led by K Chandrasekhar Rao remained adamant in crushing the strike and the state high court, too, threw up its hands in coming to their rescue.
After at least five workers committing suicide and a few others dying of heart attacks, the employees came down on their knees and offered to resume works.
And KCR was magnanimous enough to take them back into their jobs and he announced steps to revive the loss-making RTC.
After four months, the KCR government on Wedneday released salaries of the RTC employees for the entire 55-day strike period without any cuts, as was promised by the chief minister at the time of calling-off of their strike.
The finance department has issued orders releasing Rs 235 crore, salary amount of the RTC employees during their strike period.
The government has also allocated Rs 1,000 crore for RTC in the latest budget, indicating that it is going to rescue the organisation from the losses.
RTC officials said the corporation is returning to normalcy with the services getting streamlined and the revenues of the corporation are showing gradual increase.
And the man who adamantly continued the strike – E Ashwathama Reddy – has been on long leave and has virtually gone underground!