Following the ongoing indefinite strike called by the engineers from various Government departments under the banner of Uttarakhand Diploma Engineers’ Mahasangh, a couple of beneficiary schemes have come to a halt in the Garhwal and Kumaon divisions of Uttarakhand. The agitators have said that they will withdraw their agitation only after their year-long 21-point list of pending demands are fulfilled by the State Government.
The agitators from the different Government departments including PWD, Jal Sansthan, Peyjal Nigam, Rural Engineering Service, Irrigation Asian Development Bank funded projects, PMGSY (Pradan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna, Agriculture, MlA and MP funds have be agitating for the last week near Vidhan Sabha, Dehradun, to fulfill their year-long pending demands.
In a rough estimate, the beneficiary works worth Rs 300 crore have stopped due to the ongoing strike by the agitators. The agitators have said that the Association members will take responsibility of works carried out by the nodal agency during their agitation. Due to the ongoing strike called on by the agitators, the work of painting at Chakrata road, repairing of roads at Raipur, hot mix plant at Shimla by-pass road has stopped.
While speaking to The Pioneer, Naveen Kandpal, State president of Uttarakhand Diploma Engineers Mahasangh, lamented that the “memorandum highlighting our demands was given many times to top bureaucrats, but nothing much has been done so far to fulfill the year-long pending demands of the Association”.
The agitators who were identified as BN Uniyal, Vipul Raturi, Ashish Uniyal, Harish Chauhan and Ajay Chauhan staged protest to fulfill their year-long pending demands of Association. The agitators have said that they will intensify their agitation in the near future to redress their grievances.
Speaking to The Pioneer, VD Binjwal, official spokesman, Association said that hike in the grade pay of junior engineers, hike in vehicle allowance, revise the salary of junior engineers, centralisation of Peyjal and Jal Sansthan, ban on outside nodal agency etc. are among the pending demands of Association. Harish Nautiyal, Alok Srivastava, Naveen, Deepak and many more
were present.