In Kashmir, thousands pray for salvation, hundreds for wages
September 18th, 2009 - 2:25 pm ICT by IANS
Srinagar, Sep 18 (IANS) While thousands prayed inside mosques throughout the Kashmir Valley on Shab-e-Qadr (the holiest night according to Muslim belief), a few hundred less fortunate spent the night under the open sky in the state’s summer capital Srinagar and prayed for their wages.
Hundreds of employees of the State Road Transport Corporation (SRTC) gathered at the transport yard near the city centre Lal Chowk and prayed not only for penance in the world hereafter, but also for their wages.
The employees of the SRTC have not been paid their wages for many months now as the corporation is incurring heavy losses and the government says it has no means of paying them.
“I am now seeking voluntary retirement and one time settlement to leave the corporation after having served it for more than 30 years,” Muhammad Shafi, a protesting driver said.
State Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather has made it clear that the government, which owns the SRTC, has no money to pay the employees. “They must earn their wages by making the corporation a financially viable undertaking,” he told reporters here last week.
A super deluxe bus fleet of the SRTC is used for travel across the Line of Control that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan.
The first SRTC bus carrying passengers to Muzaffarabad was flagged off amid much fanfare by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi here April 7, 2005.
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Tags: abdul rahim, bus fleet, chowk, deluxe bus, finance minister, heavy losses, india and pakistan, kashmir valley, manmohan singh, muhammad shafi, muslim belief, open sky, prime minister manmohan, prime minister manmohan singh, progressive alliance, sonia gandhi, state finance, super deluxe, transport corporation, voluntary retirement
