May Day: CITU, Bengal bus operators seek govt aid for workers to tide over COVID-19 crisis

Kolkata, May 1 () Leftist trade union CITU, on theoccasion of May Day on Friday, urged the West Bengalgovernment and private bus operators to give financialassistance and other aid to lakhs of distressed transportsector workers in the state to enable them to tide over thecrisis brought about by the novel coronavirus outbreak.

State unit president of CITU, Subhash Mukherjee saidthat workers in unorganised sectors like public transport werefacing hardships due to the lockdown imposed to contain thecoronavirus outbreak.

He said that though the lockdown has to continue inview of the extraordinary situation caused by COVID-19, theinterests of the workers in the unorganised sector must belooked into to prevent them and their families from starving.

Private bus operators have also urged the stategovernment to provide financial aid to workers employed in thesector.

General secretary of Joint Council of Bus Syndicates,Tapan Banerjee said, "Financial aid apart from providingration to the distressed workers is an absolute necessity forthem and their families to survive."

He said the state government should transfer a certainamount of money to the bank accounts of every worker in theunorganised sector to enable them to tide over the crisis.

The Bus and Minibus Samannoy Samity (coordinationcommittee) has recently written to Prime Minister NarendraModi and Union Road Transport and Highways and MSME MinisterNitin Gadkari to consider inclusion of public transport in theMicro, Small and Medium Enterprises sector, its generalsecretary Rahul Chatterjee said.

"This will help operators and workers of the publictransport sector avail the facilities and grants provided bythe Union MSME Ministry," he said.

Noting that the passenger transport business has cometo a standstill owing to the lockdown, Chatterjee said thatthe central and state governments should urgently considerproviding financial assistance to all the persons involved inthe sector.

He has also written to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjeeand state Transport Minister Suvendu Adhikary over the issue.

The West Bengal government had recently announced thatintra-district private bus services will commence in 'greenzones' of the state but each vehicle can carry only up to 20passengers, who must be seated by maintaining socialdistancing.

Private bus operators, however, said it would not beeconomically viable to run the vehicles with only 20passengers and expressed their inability to provide theservices.

Bus operators' associations have said that either thestate government should give them subsidy for running thevehicles or it may requisition the buses for plying thevehicles on different routes. AMRACD ACD