Families of deceased UPSRTC employees still waiting for a job

Some relatives have vowed to protest again in front of the gates of the UPSRTC headquarters starting September 1.

The list of dependents eligible for employment under UPSRTC has grown to 998 beneficiaries in nearly six years. The corporation had said last month that the approved list would arrive by August 15.

The long wait had prompted the beneficiaries to stage a week-long protest in mid-June this year, at which point the SRTC announced that the final action plan would be announced after August 15.

Now, however, the date has been extended to August 31 for the umpteenth time in the last six years.

Under a government program, all departments are required to maintain a list of employees who earn the living for their family in order to be able to offer another able-bodied family member a job in the same department.

According to this plan, UPSRTC can only employ relatives of deceased employees if the company is making profits. According to company authorities, this is the reason for the long wait that the family members had to endure. According to UPSRTC's records, the company had been making losses until last year.

M. Venkateshwar Lu, principal secretary of UPSRTC, had stated that the department's profits have fallen drastically since Covid-19, making it unable to provide jobs to these 998 people.

However, according to UPSRTC records, approx. ₹In the last financial year, a profit of 130 crore was made.

Ajit Singh, technical director at UPSRTC, said the reason for the continued delay is different: although the proposal has been submitted and the review and approval process was supposed to be completed by August 15, the crucial meeting of the state government has been postponed, due to which the beneficiaries have to wait for another 15 days for now.

Interestingly, even the SRTC authorities are not sure whether the revised date is fully confirmed.

Some beneficiaries were informed of this delay. They had already ended their week-long protest in July after being assured that the final announcement would be made after August 15.

However, now two of the beneficiaries, namely Akashdeep Singh from Meerut and Shivam Kumar from Aligarh, have confirmed that the protest will be intensified and will resume on September 1 at the gates of the UPSRTC headquarters if the company again defaults on its payment obligations.