Last session of Telangana Assembly passes RTC staff Bill, other Bills returned by Governor; adjourned sine die

HYDERABAD: The Telangana Assembly passed the crucial Telangana State Road Transport Corporation Absorption of Employees into Government Service Bill 2023 which was approved by Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan in the nick of the moment on Sunday, the last day of the four-day monsoon session.

The passing of the bill become evident after Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao declared that the Governor had approved the bill and he thanked her. Later Minister for Transport Puvvada Ajay Kumar introduced the Bill.

He said that the bill was aimed at absorbing 43,055 permanent employees of the Corporation into Government service that would cost the Government exchequer Rs 3,000 crore per annum. He assured the house that the TSRTC would continue the services of the contract employees and would take care of all the debt-related issues.

“While the Government will take care of the salaries of the permanent employees, their PRC, pending TA bills, and retirement benefits will be protected as per the guidelines to be framed once the bill is passed,” the Minister said.

He said that the State cabinet took the decision to save the TSRTC from accumulating losses by absorbing its staff into Government. However, as the law prohibited the merger of employees of a public corporation into Government service, the Telangana Government decided to introduce a new bill, he added.

Replying to a question posed by BJP Legislator Etela Rajender, the Minister said that the temporary staff hired by TSRTC would be continued by the service provider even after the merger.

After the bill was unanimously passed, Minister for Municipal Administration and Urban Development KT Rama Rao introduced Telangana State Municipalities Second Amendment Bill 2023 aimed at excluding two village panchayats from Banswada and Aleru municipalities. The bill was also passed unanimously.

In addition to these two, the Telangana Assembly passed four bills on Friday which were earlier returned by Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan. They were the Telangana Municipal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2022, the Telangana Public Employment (Regulation of Age of Superannuation) (Amendment) Bill, 2022, the Telangana State Private Universities (Establishment and Regulation) (Amendment) Bill, 2022, and the Telangana Panchayat Raj (Amendment) Bill, 2023.

Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy adjourned the session sine die, marking the end of the last session of the Telangana Assembly before the upcoming elections.