Four agitators who climbed atop a water tank near Dehradun social welfare department office late Monday night, demanding regularisation of jobs, have remained there on Wednesday. The condition of two of the agitators has reportedly worsened.
However, they were determined to continue with the stir, members of the association spearheading the agitation said. However, no Government representative or officer reached the protest site on Wednesday to talk to them after the agitators rejected the proposal put forward by additional director (heath department) Ajit Gairola who reached there on Tuesday evening for merging them with Prantiya Rakshak Dal (PRD) jawans Directorate.
The State general secretary of the agitating outfit, Malaria Protection Workers (MPW) Multipurpose Employees’ Union, Rakesh Bisht said on Wednesday that the protest would continue till a solution to the logjam evolved.
The picture was the same on Wednesday as that of Tuesday with scores of the association members staging sit-in on EC Road near the water tank in empathy with the cause while sloganeering against the State Government for its alleged apathy over their demands. The agitators who are protesting from the top of the water tank are lalit, Devanand, Bhupendra and Banti.
Notably, four association members, carrying petrol in bottles, climbed up a water tank, near Survey Chowk. They demanded regularisation of their jobs while threatening
to immolate themselves in
case the authority remained unresponsive.
Things have not thawed a bit till Wednesday evening, said the police officers who remain deployed there to stave off any untoward incident.
To resolve the impasse, Dehradun City Magistrate lalit Narayan Mishra reached the protest site on Wednesday and took stock of the situation. But no solution was found.
Sudama Joshi, one of the association members, said that they have been staging demonstration at Parade Ground since March 9 in support of their demands. “We have no other option but to intensify the stir in the coming days, given our predicament,” he said. “The State Government must step in to redress our long-pending grievances adequately instead of dangling carrots of palliatives. If it fails to rise to the occasion things might spiral out of control as our plight is desperate,” he warned.