Women conductors at Hyderabad’s Kushaiguda RTC depot alleged on Wednesday that officials prevented them from signing the attendance register and pressured them to take leave when drivers assigned to their buses were absent. Depot officials denied the allegation and said the conductors would receive their full salaries.
The dispute led to mild tension at the depot after the conductors reported for duty but were allegedly made to wait without being allowed to record their attendance. According to the report, the women employees said senior officials repeatedly asked them to apply for leave whenever drivers failed to report for duty.
The conductors questioned why they should use their leave balance when they had arrived at the depot as scheduled. They also raised concerns that applying for unnecessary leave could affect their salaries and employment records, even if they were available to work.
The employees said they had been waiting since the morning without clarity on their duty assignments. They questioned the practice of asking conductors to take leave because the drivers assigned to the corresponding buses were absent, saying the absence of another employee should not prevent them from reporting for duty.
The allegation centres on how the Hyderabad public transport undertaking records attendance and allocates duties when a bus crew is incomplete. In the reported incident, the women conductors said they were ready to perform their duties but were not given a clear assignment after the drivers failed to attend work.
Kushaiguda depot officials rejected the allegation that conductors were being marked on leave when drivers were absent. They said it was false that leave would be recorded for a conductor assigned to a bus if the corresponding driver did not report for duty.
The officials also said the conductors would continue to receive their full salaries and that marking them on leave would not result in salary deductions. Their clarification addressed the employees’ concern over possible loss of pay, but the report did not indicate whether the depot had issued a written direction on attendance or leave procedures.
The incident highlights the operational dependence between drivers and conductors in bus services. When one member of a crew is absent, the other employee’s duty status can become subject to depot-level decisions on deployment, attendance and leave. In this case, the conductors’ complaint was that they were available for work but were left waiting without a duty assignment.
The reported dispute remained centred on the competing accounts of the women conductors and Kushaiguda depot officials. The officials’ stated position was that the conductors would not suffer salary deductions, while the employees continued to question why leave should be sought when they had reported for duty.
