Employees of the State-run road transport corporations staged an agitation on Thursday, February 19, 2026, pressing for salary revision, clearance of pending arrears, and other service-related demands. Despite the protest, the corporations stated that public transport services operated almost normally, with overall fleet utilisation remaining above 96%.

The Joint Action Committee (JAC) of workers’ unions from the four transport undertakings — Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC), Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC), North Western Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (NWKRTC) and Kalyana Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (KKRTC) — went ahead with their proposed ‘Bengaluru Chalo’ march and a day-long demonstration at Freedom Park, even as the State government agreed to release a portion of the pending arrears and special grants.

Official figures indicated that 12,458 scheduled departures were planned across the four corporations. Of these, 11,987 services were operated, translating to an operational rate of 96.22%. With the deployment of 663 additional services to manage demand, the total number of operated trips rose to 12,650, pushing the effective operational percentage, including extra services, to 101.54% as of 10 a.m.

Among the corporations, KSRTC operated 3,806 of its 4,177 scheduled departures, recording 91.12% operations. However, with the addition of 656 extra ‘Jatra’ services, its effective operational performance increased to 106.82%. BMTC functioned at near-full capacity, running 3,540 services against 3,532 scheduled departures and achieving 100.23% operations without deploying additional trips.

NWKRTC operated 2,250 out of 2,310 scheduled departures, registering 97.40% operations. With seven additional services operated to meet festival-related demand, its effective operational rate rose slightly to 97.71%. KKRTC, meanwhile, operated 2,391 services against 2,439 scheduled departures, achieving 98.03% operational performance.

A day earlier, on February 18, Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy held discussions with union representatives and announced that 26 months of salary arrears amounting to ₹1,271.92 crore would be released for officers and employees of the four State-run RTCs, in a bid to address their long-pending demands.