Retired transport staff clueless over disbursal of terminal benefits

CHENNAI: S Ravikumar, a retired driver of MTC, has been waiting for the past six months to get his terminal benefits comprising provident fund, gratuity and earned leave surrender, but in vain.

On the day of his retirement, after completing 34 years of service, he was handed a retirement certificate, a sweet box, a shirt and a dhoti but no mention of the terminal benefits.

Besides Ravikumar, hundreds of employees of the eight State Transport Undertakings who retired since November 2022 also were not paid their terminal benefits including PF, EL, gratuity and pension commutation. “Even after six months of retirement, I was not given the account of what would be my final settlement. But I started getting a pension from the next month of retirement. Now I am waiting to get the terminal benefits,” Ravikumar, who worked at the Iyyapanthangal depot said.

As many as 27 trade unions in the State Transport Corporations including CITU, AITUC and ATP went on an indefinite strike from January 9 in protest over the non-fulfilment of their six-point-charter of demands including a DA hike for retired employees, the commencement of 15th wage agreement talks, 18 months of DA arrears for workers and filling up vacancies. However, the strike was called off by the unions after the Madras High Court asked the unions to consider the plight of the passengers travelling to their native places for the Pongal festival and postpone it till the next round of conciliatory talks.

Seenivasan, another retired driver of MTC, said that retired employees of government departments and even loss-making Tangedco get their terminal benefits on the date of superannuation. “Only the transport corporation employees were made to suffer in the state. Tangedco suffers heavy losses compared to the transport corporation but they don’t face such issues. From getting our terminal benefits to hiking of dearness allowance of pensioners, we are facing problems in all the issues which are very normally given to other government employees, “ Seenivasan who was from MTC’s Aynavaram depot said.

John Bosco, who worked as a foreman at the Iyyapanthangal MTC depot said that he was getting Rs 11,000 less in his pension due to non-hiking of the dearness allowance. “If the DA of transport employees is hiked to 46 per cent, I get DA of Rs 13,250 per month. But I am getting a DA of only Rs 1430 with the existing four per cent. My monthly pension including DA is Rs 20,705. If the DA is revised to 46 per cent, I will get a pension of Rs 31,000,” he said.

Bosco who retired in March last year after 36 years of service said that retired employees of all the government departments and other state public sector companies get a revision of their DA every time the serving employees get one. “But the transport corporation pensioners were being denied DA hike since November 2015,” he said.

The State Transport and Transport Corporations Retired Employees Welfare Association general secretary K Karsan said that despite the Madras High Court order in favour of the retired employees, the transport department has filed an appeal in the Supreme Court. “There are 96,000 pensioners including family pensioners who were being denied the DA hike from November 2015. “Even during the strike, the trade unions demanded the Transport Minister to consider hiking the DA of the retired employees alone. But the minister sought time to consider it. Already, we had waited for eight years. How long they wanted us to wait for the DA hike?” he wondered.

Special Joint Labour Commissioner will be holding a conciliation meeting between trade unions and transport corporation officials on Friday. CITU-affiliated Tamil Nadu State Transport Employees Federation general secretary K Arumuga Nainar said that they would decide on the next course of action based on the outcome of Friday’s talk. “We will be pressing on our six-point-charter of demands again in the meeting, “ he said, adding that about 4000 retired employees yet to get their terminal benefits from November 2022.