SHIMLA, Oct. 16 — Hundreds of retired employees of the Himachal Road Transport Corporation (HRTC) on Wednesday staged a protest over pending arrears, non-payment of pensions, and long-delayed medical reimbursements, accusing the state government of neglecting their plight.
Addressing the demonstrators, HRTC Pensioners’ Association president Devraj Thakur said, “We have been deceived by the management and the state government. The Himachal Pradesh government adopted the new pay scale scheme in 2016, but arrears from 2016 to 2022 remain unpaid. Since April 1, 2024, not a single retired employee has received even ₹1 as pension.”
Thakur said that medical reimbursement claims had not been cleared for the past four years. “Over 500 retired employees have passed away in the last four years without receiving reimbursement for their medical expenses,” he added. “Many of us worked for decades in workshops filled with smoke and dust and now suffer from chronic ailments. Even today, nearly 70% of those who came to the protest brought their daily medicines with them.”
Describing the worsening hardship, Thakur said elderly pensioners, some in their seventies and eighties, were being forced to borrow money for food and medicines. “Every month we wait in hope that our pension will arrive on the first, so we can clear our dues. But even that hope is fading,” he said.
Responding to the protests, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said that Deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri was already in talks with union representatives to address the issue. “We provide ₹750 crore annually to HRTC,” Sukhu told reporters. “The corporation earns around ₹70 crore per month from its operations, including school and subsidized bus services. However, recent natural calamities disrupted operations for two months, severely affecting revenue. This has caused difficulties in disbursing pensions.”
The Chief Minister said the government was “sensitive to the issue” and would extend grant support to HRTC so that pensions and salaries could be released soon. “We’ve directed that pensions should ideally be released by the 15th of every month, but we’re now trying to ensure payment by the 1st,” he said.
Calling for “systemic reforms” in the state transport corporation, Sukhu added, “HRTC needs to rationalize its workforce, especially at the officer level, to control expenditure. The government will continue supporting HRTC financially, but we expect better management and accountability in return.”
