Govt announces 12 per cent wage hike for STC employees

Chennai, Feb 6 (UNI) The Tamil Nadu Government today announced 12 per cent wage hike for State Transport Corporation employees.

After marathon discussions, an agreement to this effect was signed by the representatives of various trade unions and the Government in the presence of Transport Minister K N Nehru this evening.

This would benefit about 1.10 lakh employees. As per the agreement, the Government had agreed for 12 per cent increase in fixation benefits, which means that the employees would get wage hike from a minimum of Rs 1,000 to maximum of Rs 1,800.

This would incur an additional expenditure of Rs 184 crore per annum for the Government, Centre for Trade Unions (CITU) General Secretary and Tamil Nadu Government Transport Workers federation President A Soundararajan told UNI.

The Government also agreed to revise the wages once in three years instead of the existing once in five year practice, introduced during the previous AIADMK regime.

It also agreed to provide 50 per cent hike in every stage of increment, besides restoring some of the benefits to the employees withdrawn by the previous Government.

He said a majority of the 28 unions, barring those affiliated to the opposition AIADMK and its political ally MDMK, signed the agreement.

The Government constituted a committee, comprising Managing Directors of the State Transport Corporations, the Joint Managing Director of the Tamil Nadu Transport Development Finance Corporation and officials from the Finance Department, to negotiate the wage settlement.

In the recent talks, the Government had almost conceded most of the demands but the pay hike decision was deferred as the workers demanded 12 per cent pay hike and the Government was sticking to its stand of 10 per cent.

To resolve the impasse, Mr Nehru held prolonged talks with the representatives and arrived at an amicable solution.

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