Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, June 1: Seeking personal intervention of Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti to get their grievances addressed, the volunteer retired employees of SRTC, today held a protest demonstration near Press Club Jammu.
The protesting retired employees raised slogans in support of their demands, which include release of 6th Pay Commission arrears, COLA arrears since 1999 and pension benefits.
The protest, organized under the banner of All J&K SRTC Volunteer Retired Employees Association, was led by president VRS Union, Dev Raj Bali
While addressing the protest demonstration, Bali lamented that the State Government was not releasing their dues for the last more than six years. Thirteen VRS employees have passed away during this period of struggle as they could not afford the medical treatment because of non-payment of arrears,” he alleged.
Mr Bali said that the Government had made commitment to settle the accounts of VRS/GHS employees within 60 days but the same has not been done even after six years. “Recently we were assured that our case will be included in the budget proposals this year but it was again proved to be an eye wash,” he added and urged Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti to personally intervene into their case for release of the dues.
The protest demonstration was also addressed by Balwinder Singh, Surinder Singh, J D Singh, B B Sharma, Prem Nath, Gulshan Singh, Dwarka Nath and others.