Mumbai

Maharashtra employees call for strike from tomorrow; government agrees to pay dues

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MUMBAI: At A coordination meeting held in Mumbai on Monday, 17 lakh Maharashtra government employees have decided to go on a three-day strike starting Tuesday.

The Maharashtra State Employees Organization and the Maharashtra State Class Four Employees Association had given a call for a three-day strike from August 7 to press for various demands, including new recruitment as well as the implementation of the seventh pay commission recommendations.

Though Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had announced last week that the benefits of the seventh pay panel recommendations would be effective in the state from January 2019, the employee unions said the government had promised to give the benefits around Diwali.

Employees from Mantralaya (state secretariat), Zilla Parishad (district councils), municipal councils, teachers and non-teaching staff from educational institutes are expected to participate in the strike.

This will hamper work in government schools and several other offices, causing a lot of inconvenience to the people.

While it had been decided in earlier meetings that the pay scales would be revised according to the seventh pay commission at around Diwali, the government had recently indicated that only the arriers would be paid around Diwali and the new pay scales would be implemented in January 2019.

This angered the employees and they decided to proceed on strike. When the CM had announced the decision at a meeting with the employee union representatives, it was seen as a major pre-election announcement to keep the employees in a good humour.

However, the decision appears to have been backfired.

‘Implement pay panel suggestions’

Implementation of the seventh pay commission recommendations is one of the main demands of the employees.

According to estimates, the implementation of the suggestions will put an additional burden of  21,000 crore on the state exchequer while Rs 4,800 crore had already been allocated for this in the Budget.

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