Auto strike: Congress promise meets road
Hyderabad’s auto unions say they’ll park their vehicles and wait — for the Congress government’s own promise to show up.
Auto unions are seeking clarity and implementation of the government’s support promise.
News | Public services
Hyderabad’s auto unions have announced an indefinite strike, blaming lost livelihoods on free TSRTC travel under the Mahalakshmi scheme and demanding the Congress government implement its own pledge to support drivers. The Telangana State Auto Unions Joint Action Committee (JAC) said the strike would begin at “midnight”, a timing it stated two different ways at its Saturday presser near RTC Cross Roads. The exact start hour is unclear; the strike call is not.
According to the unions, women’s free bus rides have cut into auto trips. The government’s records do confirm the scheme’s scale — 62.13 crore free trips for women and transgender persons by 30 June 2024, and monthly support to TSRTC recorded in the Budget — but the JAC did not publish earnings data to quantify drivers’ losses.
On the money, the JAC demanded Rs 12,000 for each auto driver, tying it to the Congress manifesto. The party’s own document says Rs 12,000 per year, plus a welfare board and Auto Nagars in major towns. If the Congress government meant monthly, it forgot to write it down.
The unions also want app-based services curbed and a state-run driver app instead, and oppose “integrating” electric autos with RTC — a proposal they did not define. No commission rates, contracts or a policy note were tabled, and the companies haven’t answered here.
Mahalakshmi’s free bus travel exists and is funded; that part the records show. Whether the Congress government will now fund the promise it made to auto drivers is where the wheels are wobbling.