THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala has warned Finance Minister Thomas Isaac against ‘intimidating’ government employees to part with their one month’s salary for the salary challenge. He asked the state government to allow employees to join the challenge as per their financial capacity.
“Isaac is threatening employees. It cannot be accepted,” Chennithala said. He asked the government to spare certain categories of staff from the challenge. The employees from the health, police and fire force departments, in addition to the revenue department staff engaged in Covid-19 fight, temporary staff and class-IV employees should be excluded, he said.
Chennithala said the government should in fact give one month’s salary as incentive to the staff of health and police departments. In a statement issued on Friday, Chennithala even doubted the relevance of the salary challenge. “The floods created a huge economic loss to the state. Now, there is no such situation. The government is not even offering solatium to the kin of dead Covid-19 victims. I’m asking the government to toe the line of the Delhi government which offered assistance to the families of the dead,” he said.The Opposition Leader asked the government to open a separate account for keeping Covid-19 relief contributions.