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Govt jumps in with special loan to stave off bus strike
A promise of Rs. 300,000 low-interest loans enabled the government to halt the private bus strike scheduled to be held this week.
The Private Omnibus Association was to launch the strike action this week to push for several demands, including a low-interest rate on bus leases.
The Ministry of Transport intervened and came up with a proposal to grant fresh loans on the vehicles through state banks.
The People’s Bank and Bank of Ceylon will offer up to Rs. 300,000 at 7.5 per cent interest, and loans are available for all vehicles with permits. There are 3,200 private buses running in the Western Province and 17,000 in the other eight provinces, NTC data shows.
Transport ministry Secretary N B Monti Ranatunga said the loans would be granted through the National Transport Commission (NTC) for the Western Province, and the rest through the respective provincial councils.
The loans will be processed from Monday, NTC Chairman Shashi Welgama said. The loans are not conditional on the condition of the vehicles as such reviews are carried out when renewing the annual permits, he added.
The transport ministry is also talking to provincial councils about waiving payments on log permits for buses for November and December 2020. Bus operators are refusing to pay for those months, claiming that during this period most of the provinces were in lockdown and buses were not operating.
Bus unions claim that some councils, such as the southern and northern provincial councils, have agreed to waive charges but others have refused to do so.
About 16,000 vehicles have not been granted this concession, the President of the Omnibus Association, Gemunu Wijeratne, said.
Ministry Secretary Ranatunga said councils had argued that their budgets had been hit by revenue losses during lockdown months and waiving bus log permit fees would aggravate their problems.
Waivers were granted during the first wave of COVID-19.
Bus unions have also brought up the issue of payments made to time-keepers for turns to run the buses. It is learnt that most buses bribe their way to gain frequent trips, depriving others of their rightful turn. The transport ministry has taken up the issue with police.
| Longstanding wage issue of plantation workers resolved The longstanding issue of a Rs. 1,000 daily wage for plantation workers has been resolved through the Wages Board. After months of discussion with Regional Plantation companies that dug in their heels against paying the Rs. 1,000 daily wage promised by the government in the 2020 Budget, a cabinet paper submitted by the labour minister resolved the problem. Accordingly, a worker will be entitled Rs. 900 basic wage and a cost-of-living allowance of Rs. 100 a day, the former paid by the companies and the Rs. 100 by the government. ETF and EPF payments employees will be based on the basic salary of Rs. 900. According to the 2019-2021 collective agreement that expired last month, the current daily basic wage of an estate worker is Rs. 700 with a Rs. 50 allowance. Upcountry People’s Front member and former MP in the last government Radha Krishnan said the decision was a “win-win” situation for workers and employers. He said the assumption that increasing wages would bring down the number of working days a worker was false as tea buds had to be picked on time. “Only during the drought season will there be a scarcity of work,” he said. The Ceylon Workers Congress said the number of days’ work to which a worker was entitled had still not been settled but the matter would be taken up after the wages decision is gazetted. | |