RTC staff society sends notice to three officials over Rs 1,000 crore dues
(TGSRTC) managing director V C Sajjanar, received legal notices from the State Transport Employees' Thrift and Credit Co-operative Society (CCS) Ltd for the RTC failing to deposit the staff members'contribution of Rs 1,029 crore into the CCS over the last several years.Vijaya Pushpa, financial advisor and chief accounts officer of RTC, was also severed the notice.The officials have been asked to ensure that RTC releases the funds within the next 15 days to avoid legal action.Alleging that the corporation "breached the terms and conditions of CCS", the notice claimed that a principal sum of Rs 466 crore has been outstanding since 2022, along with an interest Rs 563 crore that has accumulated on this since 2014.
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"Deducting the amount from the salaries and withholding the same is a violation of the Section 37 of the Telangana Cooperative Societies Act, 1964," the notice added.Sources within the corporation further claimed that RTC bought buses, paid for hired vehicles and fuel expenses with the staffers' funds.About 30,000 employees contribute 4.5% of their basic monthly salary towards CCS.Delay due operational losses: RTCWhile the management admitted to not depositing the employees' contribution to CCS regularly, they maintained that it was due to RTC's operational losses."Most of these pending dues date back to 2012. While we have paid Rs 200 crore so far, we are yet to deposit the outstanding principal, which is around Rs 466 crore. A decision on the outstanding interest (Rs 563 crore), however, is yet to be taken," Sajjanar told TOI, seeking additional time to settle dues owing to the corporation's financial crises.RTC employees, meanwhile, said the lack of funds has become a concern, especially in times of emergencies."A couple of months ago, I visited the CCS office to withdraw Rs 4 lakh for my wife's surgery from my savings of Rs 6.5 lakh in CCS. However, the society informed me that there were no funds. I had to avail a loan at 2.5% interest rate and am now paying Rs 10,000 as interest every month," said a clerk from TGSRTC, Greater Hyderabad zone.10k members cancelled subscriptions: CCSIn fact, office bearers of CCS claimed that the membership has dropped because of pending payments by RTC."Earlier, there were over 40,000 regular employees were members of the society, but now we have only 30,000. At least 10,000 members cancelled their membership. Given the insufficient funds in our corpus, many had to take credit by pledging their gold jewellery in case of an emergency. Now, their ornaments are up for auction," said B Mahesh, secretary,
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