A day after the Uttarakhand employees, teachers, outsource workers joint forum suspended its proposed march to the Chief Minister’s residence and also decided to defer the three-day work boycott from August 23 as a mark of respect for the former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who passed away on Thursday, the agitating organisation said on Saturday that the State Government employees would go on an indefinite strike from August 27.
The forum claims that over 10 lakh permanent and contractual employees of all the departments and corporations would join the strike which would bring their functioning to a grinding halt.
Informing about the forum’s decision to go on the indefinite stir, the spokesperson of the forum Ravi Pachori said while talking to The Pioneer on Saturday that the forum is determined to go on the strike from August 27. “We suspended the protest rally on Friday and instead paid homage to Vajpayee ji. Thousands of employees gathered at Parade Ground as per the plan, but the protest rally was converted into a condolence meeting. Since seven-day mourning is now on we also decided to defer the three- day work boycott slated to start from August 23. However, no one from the Government has approached us till date,’’ he said.
Those leading the forum are agitated as the three-member committee constituted by the Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat to look into their demands has met just once in the past two months with nothing concrete having been offered to them.
The joint forum demands that all the employees should get the benefit of three Assured Career Progression (ACP). It also demands the teachers on Grade Pay Rs 4600 be provided a basic salary structure of Rs 17140. Another demand of the forum is that ACP should be given promotion at the end of 10, 16, 26 years of service while for power corporation workers the same benefit should be given at the end of 9, 14 and 19 years of service. They also want benefit of all allowances as per the provision of VII pay commission.
The State Government employees demand that they should be brought under U- health card scheme and the pending arrears under VII pay commission should be paid without delay. The joint forum insists that all female employees who have crossed the age of 50 and male workers who are more than 52 years of age should be exempted from the provision of the Transfers Act. The forum also demands that that the Indu Kumar Pandey wage committee should be dissolved immediately.