HOW'S this for social justice? Umashankar Prasad, tools and plant incharge at the Bihar Rajya Transport Nigam, the most impoverished of all state government-owned companies, last saw a salary slip in March 1994. He is one of the 7,500 employees of the corporation who are living in uncertainty.
"Life has been uphill," he says. In the intervening five years, he has had to mortgage everything to educate his two children. His college-going daughter lost a year because he could not afford to pay her fees. His son attends school, but only thanks to relatives and friends, who in any case are only marginally better off than he is.
"I am neck-deep in debt. I prefer to hang around the offices here. You may not get a salary, but at least you do not have to face creditors," he says. Not that there is anything to do in office. There are no buses to ply. In 1991, when Laloo Yadav took over, the corporation had 1,450 buses. Today there are less than 50. "Obviously, there is no money for repairs. So, slowly, we have had to phase out all buses," he says, standing amid hundreds of junked buses, some of which were barely on the road for two years. In effect, brand new buses have been left to rot.
Prasad has had to sell off his family jewellery, some land and move-able assets he had acquired in the good old days when people used to get salaries. Like some of his colleagues, he too is toying with the idea of returning to his village. But then what about the children's education? Now he has nothing to fall back on. And there is just a very remote chance that he will get a salary. Come Durga Puja time and Prasad can only see people around him celebrate. "For me and my children, it is a question of sheer survival. You do not even have money to pay the gods."
Not that Prasad and his colleagues have not tried. They approached Laloo when he was chief minister. The matter was referred to the concerned department. But no go. They approached the High Court, which directed the government to pay up, but then even in the days of judicial activism, nobody really gave a damn about courts: there are over 1,200 pending contempt of court notices against various government departments.
But Prasad has been luckier than some others, in that he is still alive. Since 1994, he has lost 35 colleagues to hunger and disease. One of them, Laloo Das, a mechanic, died due to brain haemorrhage because he could not pay his bills and that sparked off a temporary agitation in the bus depot right behind the historic Gandhi Maidan in Patna last year, where fiery speeches in favour of the 'depressed' classes have been delivered time and again.
If all this were not enough, there is the inevitable financial mismanagement. The state government owes the corporation over Rs 80 crore. But then even the department does not have money. "We were hoping that if that money comes through, at least we can get our salaries. Forget the arrears," says Prasad.
Predictably, in such a situation, the only public transport plying on the roads are the ones owned by successive transport ministers.
Will things change if Laloo goes? "Things may or may not change. But the point is, is he going?'' questions Prasad. The morbid fear that haunts people like him is what worse penury lies in store once all the buses are taken off the roads.
So chances are that while the RJD government and Rabri may have got the presidential reprieve, the same cannot be said about her subjects.
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