Chennai, Aug 9 : Tamil Nadu BJP President K. Annamalai on Friday urged the state government to immediately release the retirement benefits and dearness allowance arrears of Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) employees.





The state government has not released dearness allowance arrears for state transport pensioners for more than eight years. This has affected around 93,000 employees who have retired from the state transport corporation.



Annamalai said that instead of providing pension benefits and dearness allowance arrears to the retired employees of the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation the state government was spending money to conduct car race.



'The state government had not released dearness allowance arrears for TNSTC pensioners for more than eight years, which affected nearly 93,000 pensioners. Those who served in TNSTC and retired in the last 18 months have not been provided retirement benefits,' he said.



The BJP leader charged that the pensioners had staged protests on several occasions to draw the attention of the state government.



Annamalai said that the state government has been routinely giving excuses and false promises to the transport corporation employees and had failed to fulfil their demands.



On July 23, the Tamil Nadu government proposed to extend minibus services to more areas across the state.



However, the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) and six other corporations of the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC), along with the employees' federation of transport corporations opposed the plan at the public hearing conducted in Chennai by the Home (Transport) department.



The department issued a draft notification for a New Comprehensive Mini Bus Scheme 2024 to extend bus connectivity to more places across the state, including Chennai, Coimbatore, and other urban areas.



Under the scheme, operators will be permitted to run buses up to a distance of 25km, with 17km on un-served routes and up to 8km on routes served by government or private buses. Currently, the maximum distance allowed for a minibus is 20km, with 4km allowed on served routes.



/IANS