No salary, won’t drive, say city bus drivers

Nagpur: Drivers from three red bus operators have threatened not to drive city buses from December 11 if they do not get salaries by December 10.
As per red bus operators, all the drivers used to get salaries between December 7 and December 9. But this month, due to non-payment of dues by the Nagpur Municipal Corporation, they will not be able to pay salaries, the operators claimed.
The NMC has promised to release 50% of their October payments on December 8. But no provision has been made yet.
Last month too, all the three red bus operators running the city bus service had threatened to put the brakes on the service over non-payment of dues by the civic body. The NMC had not paid them since September and the dues mounted to over Rs47.5 crore. Taking serious cognisance of a TOI report, the civic body released part-payment of Rs75 lakh each to all the three red bus operators.
Sources from NMC’s transport department told TOI that a delegation of operators also met the in-charge of NMC’s accounts and finance department Mona Thakur urging her to release their outstanding payment. Stating that municipal commissioner Ashwin Mudgal is out of station, she clarified that no payments would be released until the civic chief returns on December 11.
With payments from the NMC, the operators are too facing hardships to manage fuel for the 360-bus fleet. Until the NMC takes initiative to make special financial provisions, threat will continue to loom over smooth operations of city buses. Even the transport department failed to open Rs60 crore escrow, sources said.