The Odisha Power Engineers’ Federation on Saturday said it would begin a day-and-night relay Satyagraha for four days from February 4 to 7 in protest against segregation of house rent allowance (HRA) and medicine allowance (MA) for power engineers.
“There is no example of dual HRA and medicine allowance policy for employees and officers in any State in the country. The Odisha Government also pays HRA and medical allowance to all employees and officers at a uniform rate. Power engineers and employees were also getting the uniform rate. But it is matter of regret that from the date of last pay revision done on June 21, 2018 in OPTCL and subsequently in all power sector organisations, the HRA and MA policy has been made different,” lamented federation members.
Being deprived of the equal benefit in HRA and MA, there is large scale discontentment amongst the officers and engineers of the power sector. Though the federation has drawn the attention of all power corporation heads, Energy Minister, Secretary and the Chief Minister and protested wearing black badges, yet it has not yielded any result.
Having failed to get their genuine grievance redressed, the engineers and officers have decided to embark on a four-day relay Satyagraha in front of the Gridco office here from Monday, informed a release of the AOPEF.
