Kodagu flood relief: Rs 9.03cr collected by bus corporations yet to reach CM’s fund

BENGALURU: It’s been nearly nine months since heavy rains and floods devastated Kodagu, but contributions made by the employees of the state-run bus corporations are yet to be handed over to the CM’s relief fund.
In August 2018, disaster struck Kodagu leaving thousands of people homeless. Following this, transport minister DC Thammanna announced that employees of all bus corporations in the state would contribute their day’s salary for the rehabilitation work.
In fact, all four state-run bus corporations —KSRTC, NEKRTC, NWKRTC and BMTC—had collected Rs 9.03 crore from employees. However, KSRTC, which mobilized this amount from all corporations, is yet to donate it to the relief fund.
The reasons: The CM’s date for a function to hand over the cheque was unavailable. Also, the election model code of conduct which came into force on March 10, 2019.
KSRTC officials said they had planned to hand over the amount in December 2018 during the winter session of the assembly at Belagavi. However, it was postponed after one of the bus corporation couldn’t collect it from the employees.
Following this, KSRTC postponed the date on March 7, 2019 where they planned to conduct an event at Vidhana Soudha. However, the event was cancelled after chief minister HD Kumaraswamy was busy with other functions.
“We could not conduct the function later because of the model code of conduct,” said an official. KSRTC officials have denied allegations that they have diverted the funds. They said the amount will be given with interest to the CM after the counting day on March 23. “The delay was not intentional,” said an official.
HV Anantha Subbarao, general secretary of KSRTC Staff and Workers Federation, said: “We had asked the managements to contribute the same matching amount to the victims, but they were not ready. Our employees one-day contribution is also lying in the bank for close to a year. It’s unfortunate that the transport minister could not get a few minutes of the CM to hand over the cheque. It’s a negligence from the part of the minister and senior officials.”
Around 1.25 lakh staff are working in four corporations, including 40,000 in KSRTC, followed by BMTC (37,000), NWKRTC (25,000) and NEKRTC (20,000).