Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU/SRINAGAR, Sept 10: Pen down strike of the employees affected normal work in many Government and Public Sector Undertakings offices across the State today.
In Jammu, the employees of various departments, on the call given by the Joint Consultative Committee (JCC) struck work and sat on dharna at their respective office complexes. They held demonstrations and raised slogans against the Government for its failure to address the pending issues of the employees.
They were demanding immediate implementation of the agreement signed between State Government and the leadership of JCC on July 8, 2012, which include regularisation of daily rated workers, casual labourers, need based workers and others who have been engaged after 1994, removal of pay anomalies of clerical cadre pre-revised scale of 6500-10,500, enhancement of retirement age from 58 to 60 years at par with Central Government and budgetary support to all the PSUs besides.
Various employees leaders including Mohd Gafoor Dar, Amrik Singh, Jaswant Singh, Ganesh Khajuria and others addressed employees gatherings at various offices in Jammu City including Jammu Development Authority, Excise and Sales Tax, JMC, Sheep Husbandry, RDD, Agriculture, Horticulture, Command Area Development, Animal Husbandry, Nirman Bhawan, Udyog Bhawan and at other places.
The JCC leadership stressed upon the Government not to delay the implementation of agreement which will ultimately compel JCC to intensify the ongoing agitation. They said that employees are being forced to resort to the agitational path. JCC leader Gafoor Dar said that strike will continue tomorrow also and the employees of the city will assemble near Panama Chowk in the morning where senior trade unionists will address gathering and announce next course of action.
Meanwhile, reports from various districts said that strike was partial and work in many offices was going on. Some impact of the strike was witnessed at Kathua, Samba and Udhampur. Kuldip Singh was leading strike at Kathua. He visited various offices and launched campaign. With the strike of the Government employees, the general public suffered. Emergency services had been exempted from the strike.
In Srinagar the work in almost all the Government offices was paralysed with the `lock out’ strike call of the employees given by the JCC leadership. The strike was complete in Srinagar and in other districts of Kashmir.
“All the employees across the State observed complete lock out on Tuesday including the employees in Civil Secretariat and it will continue tomorrow as well,” said senior JCC leader Abdul Qayoom Wani.
Wani said that the failure from the Government side has forced the employees to close down their offices as a mark of protest. The frequent confrontation between Government and employees is continuing for past many years now.
The JCC leader said that though in July last year the Government had inked a pact with the JCC over its demands but more than a year has passed now and the demands are yet to be fulfilled.
“The enhancement of retirement age from 58 to 60 years, removal of pay anomalies and regularization of daily-wage and casual workers are those demands which the Government has already agreed both in 2011 and 2012 but the Government has shown cold response to our demands,” Wani claimed.
Wani said that they have given an ultimatum to the Government till Wednesday and if their demands were not fulfilled, they would intensify their protest program.
On Monday, hundreds of Government employees under the banner of JCC took out a protest march from Sher-i-Kashmir Park Srinagar towards Civil Secretariat which was foiled by police by using baton-charge, water-canons and detained more than 400 employees in the State.
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