HYDERABAD: Telangana High Court conducted a hearing over the Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao's proposal of Privatisation of several RTC bus routes and have approved for the Privatisation decisions of Telanagana government on Friday, November 22.

HC made it clear that "Telangana governmnet has complete rights for privatising the TSRTC buses under Section 102 of the Motor Vehicle Act."

HC even said that it cannot interfere in cabinet's decision. The High Court further reminds that the profits are only possible in the state when there is pleasant competition between the government and the private sector.

The High Court dismissed all petitions filed against the privatisation of TSRTC. HC further came to an opinion that it is not wrong to hand over 5100 buses to private sector.

The Petitioner, on the other hand, challenged in the Supreme Court over the TSRTC Privatisation of routes.

With this HC verdict now the TSRTC will have 50% RTC and 50% private buses operating in Telangana.

This verdict of HC has became a major setback to the Joint Action Committee (JAC) and all 48,000 agitating TSRTC employees who are protesting for the past 48 days from October. On Wednesday, the JAC had announced that TSRTC employees is ready to call off the strike, if the government allows them to return to service without any conditions.

However, CM KCR didn't respond to their proposal as state government has already given two deadlines for the RTC employees to join back to work. The last deadline was given by state government till November 5.

At that time of deadline, RTC JAC unions didn't pay attention to CM KCR's deadline and continue to intensify their protest all over the state demanding the merger of TSRTC with state government

Chief minister KCR on Thursday, announced that any decision will be taken only after the High court verdict.

The Telangana CMO release said that "The TSRTC has debts of over Rs 5,000 crore. It has about Rs 2,000 crore debts and dues which has to be paid immediately. As per the Provident Fund officials’ instructions, to pay the September salaries in full to the employees, Rs 240 crore is required. CCS to be paid is Rs 500 crore. Diesel dues are also to be paid. Transport Tax dues are pending for the last two years. New buses should be purchased to replace the 2,600 old buses."

Also Read: RTC JAC Announces To Continue Strike, Calls For SAVE RTC