On a day when the 50 lakh Central Government employees and 58 lakh pensioners got a pre-Diwali bonanza of 2 per cent hike in Dearness Allowance their Bengal counterparts threatened an indefinite stir if Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee failed to implement the findings of the 6th State Pay Commission.
The State pay commission earlier sought a year’s time to complete its report and expressed its helplessness to announce its findings before the stipulated deadline of November 2016.
“This is obnoxious. When the Government can spend hundreds of crores in erecting useless buildings and paint the government facilities in blue and white every six months and bestow doles on clubs many of which exist only in paper why can’t it listen to our legitimate demand,” said a senior office bearer of the State Government’s employees federation committee.
Moloy Mukherjee of the conference of State Government employees said “while the minimum pay packet of a Central Government employee is Rs 18,000 ours is just 6,000. Add to this the 6 per cent DA that they got this year. They get more than three times than what we do whereas we have to sustain in the same inflationary market conditions.”
However, sources quoting State Pay Commission chairman Abhiroop Sarkar said the delay was on account of huge number of applications and corresponding hearings that were needed to dispose them off.
“We have to give hearing to all those unions and associations that come to uswith applications,” said the official.
However, Coordination Committee leaders said “the abundance of application is only an excuse placed at the behest of the Chief Minister because everyone knows how the Commission begins its hearing after 3 pm. If they were sincere about their commitments they could easily have started the hearing process from 10 am in the morning to dispose off the applications.”
It was a ploy of the Trinamool Congress Government to delay the DA hike promised by the Chief Minister as there was shortage of funds, association leaders alleged threatening movement against the Government if recommendations were not made by November this year.
“We will go for a continuous gherao of the government offices if recommendations are not made and implanted by 1st December,” Coordination Committee leader said.