The transportation provided by government has come to stand still with the latest agitations. RTC unions in both the Telugu states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have gone on a strike from today. Their main demand is to increase their salaries with immediate effect and are asking their government to give a 43% fitment hike like other government service employees. They doesn't want to call off the strike unless there's a clear announcement on the same.

With this strike, more than 23 thousand RTC buses were confined to the depots in AP and Telangana. Thousands of passengers have to cancel their pre-planned trips or look for an alternative with this latest drama of RTC. There have been talks between the RTC unions and state governments since last few days and nothing have been fruitful until now. The transportation ministers have assured to grant a 27% fitment for which the unions haven't agreed. They want the magical figure of 43% and are not ready to take anything lesser than that.

Even the assurances of a new recommendation committee hasn't made the employee unions listen to the Government. Chief Ministers Chandrababu and KCR might have a final word with the unions today. But with so much of rigidity in place, we've to wait for some more time to get this bottleneck solved.