On Saturday, Biju Prabhakar, Managing Director of Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (Kerala RTC), lashed out against its employees, alleging 'major misappropriation' in the company. The MD alleged that Rs 100 crore "went missing" during Executive Director KM Sreekumar's tenure, and that disciplinary action would be taken against him. Addressing the media, the senior IAS officer said that Kerala RTC was running at a loss of more than Rs 7,990 crore and its workers have been opposing the fuel conversion to CNG from diesel as "misappropriation" will then be cut off.
Prabhakar alleged that workers were not attending office properly and instead of working for the Kerala RTC many have been pursuing farming and real estate businesses. He said, "Many permanent employees of the department are not working properly and instead they are doing ginger and turmeric farming. Many depots are managed by temporary employees."
The officer also said that the Sushil Khanna report on Kerala RTC had recommended systematic reduction in staff strength, adding that this has to be implemented in a timely manner to save the organisation.
He said that employees used to rotate the collection money for four to five days, and when caught and suspended they would turn into real estate dealers.
Prabhakar also said that there is clear pilferage of diesel and the employees prefer local purchase of spare parts so they can engage in misappropriation.
"The employees prefer to buy from local markets which was not recommended by the committees which studied the Kerala RTC. Local purchase helps them in misappropriation and the parts thus bought are of inferior quality," he said.
Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) leader and CPI(M) Member of Parliament (MP) Elamaram Kareem said that the employees were loyal and if there were any shortcomings, the management should take action. The workers unions do not encourage the employees to draw salaries and other benefits without doing their job, he said.
K Sasidharan, leader of INTUC (Indian National Trade Union Congress), the trade union body affiliated to Congress, said: "These are baseless allegations. How can the MD blame employees for the utter administrative failures of the management?"
"He should apologise to the workers. He is the son of an illustrious trade union leader who was finance minister of the state, the late Thachadi Prabhakaran, and he should at least think about that before levelling such unsolicited comments against the workers,” Sasidharan added.
Rajesh, leader of the RSS-affiliated BMS (Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh) union in Kerala RTC said: "The MD is making baseless allegations against the employees. It is for the management to examine the pilferage issue and take action. Putting all blame on the workers is unacceptable. We demand an explanation from him on this outburst against the workers."
(With IANS inputs)