Within eight days of their hunger strike, the protesting outsourced workers of Uttarakhand Purva Sainik Kalyan Nigam Limited (UPNL) ended their hunger strike on Wednesday. The protesting UPNL employees who have been protesting at the protest site along Sahastradhara Road for the past 52 days stated that the State government is not taking their peaceful protest and their demands seriously. According to the protestors, the government has repeatedly told them that their demands would be considered and the administration would take positive decisions for the welfare of the protesting employees but so far, the government has only violated their trust.

The general secretary of the UPNL Employees Union, Hemant Rawat said that on the first meeting of the subcommittee on April 7, the state administration invited the representatives of the union but the other committee members sidelined their opinions and drafted arbitrary minutes of the meeting. According to him, the State government has already terminated the services of over 60 outsourced UPNL employees despite promising time after time that no UPNL employee would lose their jobs due to the protest. Some protesting employees claimed that in the minutes drafted by the subcommittee, it was mentioned that the government cannot take any decision on the issue of the outsourced employees because this matter is pending in the Supreme Court (SC). The protestors questioned the termination of workers if the matter of the contractual UPNL staff is still pending in SC. According to the president of the union Kushagra Joshi, since the government is doing nothing for protestors, the union ended its hunger strike on Wednesday and has decided to escalate the protest which has been peaceful till now. He informed that the protesting outsourced UPNL employees from various districts would march towards the chief minister's residence on April 17 to fight for their demands like equal pay for equal work and regularisation. The union has urged all the political parties, employees associations and all supporters to join the march this Saturday.