Thread by @pallavict

After threats of being suspended, one more Maha ST employee Vishal Ambalkar commits su!cide😢

Maha ST workers have been on strike becoz of poor & erratic pay since pandemic & have asked for merger of MSRTC with state govt to get salaries equivalent to state govt employees

Earlier, Maha govt suspended > 2,000 MSRTC employees for participating in strike

Over the last few days, some employees have been returning to work

Now, MSRTC issues notices to 2,296 daily wage workers as the strike continues

Why has it come to this level?

Why has the iconic Red bus staff so unhappy?

Let’s see the case of 30-year-old Manoj Choudhary died by suicide on 9 Nov last year

He left behind his wife, his parents and grandparents – all dependent on his earnings as an ST employee

In his half-page suicide note, Choudhary blamed Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Sarkar for “letting the MSRTC employees down”

“I am tired of the meagre & erratic disbursement of payment by the MSRTC. Only MSRTC & Thackeray govt elected by Marathi manoos is to be blamed for my death,”

Choudhary’s last wish was that the PF accumulated in his 10 years of service be paid to his 25-year-old wife, Aishwarya

Aishwarya recalls the final few months before her husband’s death as the most difficult of her life. “My husband tried everything he could to stay afloat.

But with his meagre ₹ 14,000 salary per month, which was also paid after a delay of 3-4 months, it became impossible for him to take care of the family,” she says. Death, she says, was the only escape left for her husband.

Aishwarya, ma graduate,has since been trying to get herself employed in MSRTC

But the process, like every other decision in MVA govt,is delayed

The delay meant that the family had to abruptly stop medical treatments of the old & ailing & take more loans from friends & relatives

Choudhary’s death, by suicide, was not the first one. Since COVID-19 hit India in early 2020, over 96,000 employees of the MSRTC, handling a fleet of over 17,000 buses, have been suffering immensely. As a result, 37 employees have died by suicide since March 2020.

The employees’ union,which has been on a complete strike for >20 days,has compiled data of persons who died over the past 2 years

The reasons cited in each of those cases were insurmountable debts, lack of proper pay & state govt’s failure to pay heed to their desperate demands

Aishwarya says “The hardship suffered by our families has long remained invisible. This is the time that passengers & other residents of state should amplify our demands.”.

That is the only way, says Aishwarya, that the “lives of many more Manojs will be saved in Maharashtra.”

This is the condition of ST employees who have worked through the Corona pandemic, going to nooks & corners of Maha

Today, they have just gone through a black Diwali & there seems no light at the end of this dark tunnel

Light a🪔for our brethren & let’s stand with them🙏🙏