CHANDIGARH: Work at several government offices across Punjab was disrupted on Tuesday as ministerial staff observed a statewide pen-down strike and mass casual leave, demanding the release of pending Dearness Allowance (DA), implementation of the Old Pension Scheme (OPS), and withdrawal of the government’s letter terming their August 27 mass leave as “unauthorised leave”.
Today, it was only the ministerial staff in all departments that protested, though buses plied as usual and schools and healthcare institutions remained open. Only the ministerial staff in these institutions did not do any work as they were on a pen-down strike against the Punjab government over various long-pending demands, including the release of their pending dearness allowance.
Under the banner of the Punjab Sanjha Mulazam Manch, they also held protests at their respective offices at the Civil Secretariat, offices of various departments, at the district level, and boycotted official work by shutting down their computers.
In both the main and the mini-secretariat of the Punjab Government and in all directorates located in Chandigarh and Mohali, the employees refused to work in the morning and, by midday, they gathered outside the offices and raised slogans against the government. At the Main Secretariat, employees wearing ‘Rosh’ (protest) badges gathered in large numbers to protest.
In less than a fortnight, this is the second such agitation by government employees against the Aam Aadmi Party government. The employees went on the pen-down strike despite Cabinet Minister Aman Arora on Monday saying the proposed employees’ strike was “illegal” and warning of action if the public faced inconvenience.
As the protest gained momentum, the leaders of the employees’ union were called for a meeting with K K Yadav, Principal Secretary, General Administration, late in the afternoon.
After the meeting, the leaders said that they were simply asked to roll back their protest, without the government agreeing to roll back the letter where the August 27 mass casual leave by employees was termed as “unauthorized leave”.
Another round of meetings between the union leaders and the government is expected shortly.
The employees are demanding the immediate rollback of the letter issued by the state government that called their mass casual leave on August 27 to protest “unauthorized leave” and the transfer of their leader Sushil Kumar Fauji from the secretariat to an office in Mohali yesterday.
They demanded that no show-cause notice should be issued to employees who went on mass casual leave on August 27.
While some employees also sat on a one-day hunger strike against the government in support of Mohanjit Singh, who was allegedly picked up and tortured by the police for protesting against the AAP government during Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s programme at Shelton village in Sangrur.
