The Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) buses stayed off the road across Mandya and Ramanagaram districts on Monday with the employees of the corporation responding to the strike call given by their unions demanding revision of salaries.
The protest caused inconvenience to passengers bound for various destinations from taluk centres in both the districts.
According to officials, the Ramanagaram division of KSRTC operates 518 buses and the Mandya division 430 buses. According to Divisional Controllers M. Deepak Kumar (Mandya) and Puttaiah (Ramanagaram), all the buses in both the districts stayed off the road.
Meanwhile, buses operated by the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation and the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation that ply through Mandya town ran with good capacity.
Both the inter-state transport corporations operate over 150 buses on the Bengaluru-Mysuru highway via Mandya from Kozhikode, Sathyamangalam, Sathy, Ooty, Sultan Bathery, Wayanad, Mananthavady and other towns in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Meanwhile, KSRTC had parked all the buses at bus depots in Ramanagaram and Mandya districts. The bus stations wore deserted a look following the strike. As a precautionary measure, police personnel were deployed in front of all the depots and bus stations in the two districts. However, the strike did not have any impact on passengers commuting to Bengaluru and Mysuru from Mandya has they opted for trains.
According to reports reaching here, autorickshaws, maxicabs and private bus operators collected excess fare from the public.
