TN Transport employees fear increased workload

CHENNAI: After the Tamil Nadu government extended the retirement age of government and other PSUs to 60 years in May last year, the State Transport Undertakings are set to witness about 1,000 employees, including drivers and conductors retiring this month, to increase the burden on the existing workforce.

According to Transport Corporation officials, the first set of retirements would be happening in the State Transport Undertakings since May 2020. In May 2020, TN had increased the retirement age to 59 post the COVID-19 outbreak and a year later, it was further increased to 60 years.

The official said that among employees, Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation in Villupuram would see 230 staff retiring in the month end while the Metropolitan Transport Corporation would see about 101 retirements.

Tamil Nadu Government Transport Corporation Employees Union general secretary K Arumuga Naianar said that usually the number of retirements would be more during the month of May as many would be given date of birth for the school admission without birth certificates. “Any number of retirements would have an impact on the existing workforce as their workload will increase. There are about 6,000 vacancies in all the Transport Corporations together in various categories including drivers, conductors and technical workers,” he said, adding, the previous AIADMK government reduced 2,000 buses from the overall bus fleet. “For each bus, there will be seven workers. So by reducing the bus fleet strength by 2000, 14,000 workers were surplus thereby bringing down the vacancies to about 6,000,” he said. He noted that no new recruitment was done since 2013.

Another official of the Transport Department said that as of now, there is no proposal to recruit new people.