The stir of four Malaria Protection Workers (MPW) Multipurpose Employees’ Union activists who have been staging agitation from atop a water tank near Dehradun social welfare department office since September 14 night has got into its 12th day on Friday. They are demanding regularisation of jobs.
Though sources said self-immolation bids were made by them on Thursday police dismissed them as rumours.
Importantly, the agitators carried petrol kept in bottles when they climbed the reservoir. The members of the association that has been spearheading the stir said on Friday that they had decided not to go for the extreme step for the time being following assurance from the ruling party leader and the Chief Minister’s son Anand Rawat.
The protesters said the State Government officers’ apathy regiarding their cause is forcing them to continue with the stir from tank top. “We demonstrated at Parade Ground in the city for days in March, demanding redressal of our demand. But their nonchalance made us to change the tactics of the stir,” said Sudama Joshi, one of the association members who have been staging sit-in for days on EC Road right under the water tank to show empathy with the cause those atop the tank are fighting for.
Joshi said that a delegation had met the state Congress general secretary Anand Rawat and put their demands on Friday. “Rawat assured us that the state government is considering our demand. Something positive is likely to happen by Saturday noon,”
he said.
To defuse tension, Dehradun City Magistrate lalit Narayan Mishra arrived at the protest site on Friday.
Dwelling on the rationale of the agitation, he said 212 MPW workers were employed in the state Ayurveda service in 2008 on contractual basis under NRHM. These workers were appointed on a monthly stipend of `4000. later, in September 2014, the stipend was raised to `7000 per month. He said that the services of these workers had been terminated arbitrarily on September 30 last when the Union Government had stopped funding their
salaries.