Over the past nine days,life has been hit in every manner possible in the 10 districts that make up Telangana,the administration having collapsed amid an indefinite,general strike for statehood. Public transport has come to a halt. Schools and colleges are shut,and have postponed their exams for over 30 lakh students. Power supply has been disrupted,with coal production virtually halted,and sanitation too has begun to suffer as over 4 lakh employees in all sectors remain off duty,protesting against the delay in the creation of a Telangana state. The strike was called for by the Telangana Joint Action Committee (TJAC) on September 13. The state government has since invoked a no-work,no-pay rule but it has had no effect on those on strike. Rather,Telangana Rashtra Samiti president K Chandrasekhara Rao has threatened a fast-unto-death. Rajya Sabha member K Keshava Rao said Wednesday all Telangana MPs will resign if the Centre does not take a decision by September 30. With 70,000 workers of Singareni Collieries on strike,power generation has been hit so badly that Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy has sought help from the Centre,urging New Delhi to divert power from the Central grid and to arrange for the supply of coal from Orissa. The government has imposed power cuts of eight hours in rural areas and two hours in urban ones. Singareni Collieries daily production of 1.20 lakh tonnes has been 30,000 tonnes in the last one week,its public relations officer K Chandrasekhar said Wednesday. As a result,the AP Power Generation Corporation,which depends on Singareni Collieries for 65 per cent of its coal requirement,has been receiving only 10,000 tonnes for the last eight days; its usual supply was 40,000 to 50,000 tonnes a day. The NTPC,which needs 30,000 tonnes daily,has been receiving only 12,000 tonnes since the strike began,affecting power generation there too. It is unusual for a strike by Singareni Collieries to continue so long. Usually,they return to work within four or five days. Coal production has never been hit so badly as this time, an official said. Hardly any state transport or private bus has plied in the three days. At least 40,000 employees of the AP State Road Transport Corporation are on strike. APSRTC managing director B Prasada Rao said some 10,000 buses in Telangana region have not left their depots in the last three days. In Hyderabad,we run 3,600 buses daily but since Monday we have been able to manage to run only 200-odd buses using the services of retired drivers. People are stranded at various bus depots and are complaining of inconvenience. We are trying to resume services on some important routes, Rao said. Many officers at the state secretariat too are suffering,unable to travel in their official vehicles because the drivers are on strike. All employees from Telangana working in the secretariat,about 20 per cent of the total,have stopped reporting on duty since September 13. Autorickshaw and taxi drivers,now in more demand than ever,have been charging exorbitant fares. Prices of vegetables have gone up due to short supply. Hygiene is expected to suffer next. Hyderabad faces the prospect of a stench with employees of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation having joined the strike on Tuesday. We are worried about cleanliness and sanitation in the city as about 5,000 of 25,000 workers have decided to join the strike, corporation official Kasturi Tella said. Arguments are taking place on the premises between groups of employees who want to work and those who are on strike. Sanitation has been badly hit. None of the vehicles of municipal officials is plying. Even deputy commissioners are without vehicles. Only the commissioner has a driver with his vehicle, she said. Among citizen-centric services,e-seva centres have remained closed,and collection of bills electricity and municipal,vehicle tax and house registration has been affected. Over Rs 2,000 crore has been lost so far,according to government estimates. Pro-Telangana groups recently turned their ire on national media,staging protests outside offices of news channels and newspapers. They alleged that the media was not providing adequate coverage of the strike.
