The nearly two-month-old strike by employees of the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation over various demands was called off on Monday, a top trade union leader announced. The TSRTC employees unions Joint Action Committee (JAC) leader Aswathama Reddy said the decision to end the strike was taken to halt alleged attempts to 'privatise' the corporation. Over 48,000 employees of TSRTC went on an indefinite strike since October 5, demanding among other things, merger of the corporation with the state transport department. Later the unions said they were willing to drop the merger demand if it becomes a hurdle for the government to hold talks with them. However, neither the TSRTC management or the state government have acceded to any demand of the workers. ".attempts are being made to privatize RTC; to stop and face this, whether the government responds or not, we should all go to (bus) depots tomorrow morning and bring pressure on the management towards taking up our duties, he told reporters. He claimed that attempts are being to issue a Government Order (GO), by taking up the matter with the Governor, allowing more private services. On November 22, the Telangana High Court had dismissed a petition, challenging the state cabinet decision to privatise over 5,000 bus routes. The court, while dismissing the petition of P L Vishweshwar Rao, vice-president of the Telangana Jana Samithi, challenging the cabinet's November 2 decision to privatise permits of 5,100 bus routes, said the state government has the authority to take a decision on the matter. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had defended the cabinet decision, saying it was done to maintain healthy competition and had warned that the other routes would also be given to private operators if RTC workers did not rejoin duty.
