In a statement that could widen the divide between the Bengal Government employees agitating for the past several months for increased Dearness Allowance (DA) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) Government, senior State Minister Akhil Giri on Monday said that the employees who were staging dharna and resorting to cease work should be prepared for salary cuts and breakages in service.
“What is this rule about taking a salary without working … if you do not work for days and months on end … hold dharnas in the streets in Kolkata and Delhi and yet you will take your salary … this is not done … if you do not come to work then you should be prepared for salary cuts,” Giri who had earlier courted controversy by using unparliamentary words about President Droupadi Murmu said.
Giri’s statement came close on the heels of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee saying that the Government staff should ask the Centre to clear the State’s dues. “I have given a cumulative 126 percent DA … I cannot give more … the employees should now go to the Centre and ask it to release the State’s Rs 1 lakh crore that it has withheld,” Banerjee said.
Meanwhile, the state government employees on Monday threatened a prolonged dharna in front of the residence of Giri. They have also threatened to go on an indefinite cease work should their demand of 33 per cent DA hike not be met by the State Government.
Both the State Administrative Tribunal and the Calcutta High Court have ruled in favour of the government employees say, DA was not a gratuitous grant from the employer but a matter of right. Presently an SLP filed by the State Government is lying pending in the Supreme Court.