The Metropolitan Transport Corporation will soon hire 230 drivers and conductors through a private agency to improve bus frequency in the city and its suburbs. Of the 3,200 buses available, around 500 remain idle at depots daily due to shortage of drivers, as per official data. This has affected bus services in the city where commuters are already struggling with frequent disruptions in local train services.
The MTC needs at least 600 more drivers to overcome this shortage and use its fleet to the fullest. So, as a temporary arrangement it recruited retired drivers and now has floated a tender to rope in a private manpower agency that can provide 234 experienced drivers and conductors.
T Sadagopan, a resident-activist from Avadi, said not all families, residing in the suburbs and the city’s outskirts, can afford a two-wheeler or a car and many still prefer buses or trains. The decline in bus services had allowed auto drivers to exploit commuters. “Also, of late, there has been a huge migration of labourers/workers from other states.
They too solely depend on public transportation, and it is evident from the crowd we see on buses and local trains every day.
So, it is time to take all possible steps to improve bus services,” he said.
However, this move could face a backlash from MTC workers’ unions who have opposed the involvement of private manpower agencies. “For years, we have been asking the government to fill vacancies by recruiting only permanent staff (and not temporary/contract employees),” said K Arumugha Nainar from CITU-affiliated Tamil Nadu State Transport Employees Federation.
When unions opposed it and issued a strike notice earlier this month, the MTC agreed to drop the move but it has gone ahead by releasing a tender to rope in a private agency, he said.
