Employees plan 3-day halt from Feb 16
Srinagar/ Jammu, Feb 11: The two-day strike of government employees continued on Wednesday with all government offices and public sector undertakings remaining shut across the State. Meanwhile, Joint Coordination Committee – an amalgam of all gazetted and non-gazetted employee associations from all three regions of the State announced a three day strike from February 16 to protest against State government’s non-seriousness about implementation of 6th Pay Commission recommendations.
The two days strike evoked near total response in almost every district of the State with all government employees and other senior officers abstaining from work.
JCC had called for a strike to press for their demand of implementation Sixth Pay Commission recommendations, removal of disparity between IAS, IFS, IPS and state level services in retirement age and enhancement of retirement age of all employees to 60.
The other demands of the employees include regularization of temporary workers, formation of a transparent transfer policy and revival of Mediclaim Insurance Policy.
However emergency services including hospitals remained unaffected.
All the government offices in all three regions wore a deserted look with employees staying away from work places and normal work crippled.
In Valley the employees observed a pen down strike while JCC organized a protest rally in Jammu.
“At least 25,000 employees held protest demonstrations and marched from Press Club to Civil Secretariat Jammu. Police tried to stop us at several places but the number of employees was large so we marched ahead.” President EJAC (Q) Abdul Qayoom Wani told Rising Kashmir over phone.
The JCC also chalked the future strategy for the third phase of its strike. “We are compelled to announce an agitation for three days commencing from February 16 as a protest against State’s non-seriousness about implementation of 6th Pay Commission recommendations,” a JCC spokesperson said.
Giving details of the phase III of the strike, he said: “JCC will observe a complete lock-out strike on February 16, 17 and 18. If government continues with its dillydallying approach we will announce our fourth phase strategy on February 18 which would be decisive and may turn into an indefinite strike.”
He said: “It is our humble appeal to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to solve the sensitive issue immediately. Otherwise there would be further agitation and the situation can take an ugly turn. There would be huge losses for which government itself would be responsible,”
Earlier, the employees observed a day’s strike on January 28 and went on two-day strike from Tuesday.
Various leaders of different association of the employees addressed the government employees who had gathered at Exhibition Ground near Press Club of Jammu and demanded implementation of 6th Pay Commission recommendations.
The employees in large numbers under the leadership of Khurshid Alam, Abdul Qayoom Wani, Gafoor Dar, Ram Kumar, Ganesh Khajuria, Jagmohan Sadhotra and others employees unions and association had assembled at the venue and held protest demonstrations against the government’s negligent attitude for not attending to the genuine problems of the employees.
Several leaders addressed the rally and urged the State government to make a final announcement regarding implementation of the 6th Pay Commission report in the State.
They said keeping the skyrocketing prices of essential commodities in view, the government employees are forced to live a life of abject poverty and alienation.
“If the government does not concede to our just and genuine demands we will be forced to take up the path of agitation,” said one of the striking employee.
On what the nature of agitation the employees would launch would be if there demands are not met forthwith, he said: “The refusal from the government would lead to an agitation of the magnitude much bigger than one witnessed by the State during the transfer of State’s forest land to the controversial Amarnath shrine board.”
The employees were vocal over the arrangements made by other states and said many states had already implemented the report but J&K was adopting dillydallying tactics. They also demanded full package for the Public Sector employees.
Later hundreds of employees from under Employees Joint Constitutive Committee and Employees Joint Action Committee tried to stage a protest march from Exhibition Ground toward Civil Secretariat but were held up at Indira Chowk by a massive police contingent resulting in a scuffle between Police and protesting employees.
Meanwhile, JCC leaders including Abdul Qayoom Wani, Nazir Ahmed Mir (Civil Secretariat), Ram Kumar Sharma, Khursheed Alam, Muhammad Gafoor Dar, Prem Pal Singh, Ganesh Khajuria stressed on the government to implement S L Bhat and Drabu Committee report in full without any delay.
The leaders announced that if the State government did not fulfill all demands agreed by the authorities and recommended by Governor N N Vohra, then the employees would go on a State-wide three day strike from February 16.
The other demands of the employees include enhancement of retirement age from 58 to 60 years, regularization of daily wagers and all type of temporary employees, removal of pay anomalies and conversion of COLA into DA of the PSU workers.
The employees during protest rally announced that complete strike would be observed on February 16 to 18 to intensify the struggle for the implementation of 6th Pay Commission recommendations.
Source: http://www.risingkashmir.com/
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