Employees of state-owned Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corp (APSRTC) Wednesday called off their three-day-old strike following a direction by the state high court.

A joint action committee (JAC) of various employee unions announced Wednesday that they were suspending the strike for three weeks following intervention by the court, which asked the state government to resolve all issues during the period.

A division bench of the high court, comprising acting chief justice Bilal Nazki and G. Chandraiah, asked the employees to end the strike immediately in view of the severe hardships it was causing to the general public.

The bench, which was hearing the public interest litigation, set up a five-member committee to address the demands of the employees. The committee, comprising a representative each of the government, the JAC and the court, was asked to sort out the issues in three weeks.

Over 100,000 APSRTC employees began their indefinite strike Monday, crippling the public transport system in the entire state with more than 19,000 buses off the road.

More than 12 million people travel daily by buses within the state and to neighbouring states. APSRTC had even entered the Guinness Book of World Records in 1999 for owning the largest fleet of buses.

The employees began the strike as several rounds of talks between the JAC and a three-member ministerial committee failed to break the impasse.

The demands of the employees include reduction in motor vehicle tax and sales tax on diesel, payment of 15 percent interim relief and sharing of APSRTC's debt burden of Rs.14 billion by the government.

The government had turned down the demands, claiming that the APSRTC was suffering a loss of Rs.111 million every day due to the strike.