Mumbai, Sep 4 (IANS): The Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) employees on Wednesday called off their strike following Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s intervention.

The 11 unions started an indefinite strike on Tuesday demanding salary and dearness allowance at par with the state government employees and housing rent allowance among others.

The Chief Minister on Wednesday announced a salary hike of Rs 6,500 in the basic pay of the employees.

Welcoming the Chief Minister’s announcement, the MSRTC employees decided to call off their strike which had paralysed the bus services across the state especially in rural areas ahead of the Ganesh festival causing severe hardships to the lakhs of commuters.

The BJP legislator Gopichand Papalkar, who had supported the MSRTC employees’ strike, after the meeting, told reporters that the state government has accepted their demand for the salary hike.

He recalled that the salary was hiked by Rs 5,000 in the basic pay in 2021 after the employees had gone on strike. He appealed to the employees to resume their duties from Thursday.

“The MSRTC unions welcomed the Chief Minister’s decision to increase their salary and decided to call off the strike,’’ said Papalkar.

“We demanded that the ST employees of Maharashtra should be paid according to the salary of the state government employees. The committee suggested that the demand for a salary hike of Rs 5,000 should be made immediately. The government has accepted our demand and increased the salary by Rs 6,500,” he added.

The Shiv Sena leader and trade unionist Kiran Pawaskar also thanked the Chief Minister, saying that he has also instructed to withdraw the cases against those employees who have been sitting at home for the last six months.

“Employees will also get the dues from 2020 to 2024 in a phased manner. This is the first time in Maharashtra that all the employees of all 23 organisations are happy,” he said.

Pawaskar said that the there are 251 depots and some depots need to be repaired, adding, that there are restrooms for employees, the government has said that all those restrooms will be repaired.