Bengal: Govt Employees Demonstrate in Front of Offices, Demand Hike in DA

Kolkata: Demonstrators picketed before the gates of West Bengal government offices and educational institutions demanding hike in dearness allowance (DA) on Friday as part of the day-long strike called by some organisations of state government employees.

Demonstrators squatted in front of the gates of state government offices like Writers Building, Bikash Bhavan, Khadya Bhavan, Swastha Bhavan, and Kolkata Municipal Corporation.

Similar scenes were witnessed in district headquarters town, block development offices and municipalities and panchayats as the number of attendees was fewer than on other days.

A protestor, belonging to the CPI(M)'s employees wing, said outside the Kolkata Municipal Corporation building here that "instead of issuing one notice after another this government should work towards hiking the DA of state government employees and bring it on par with other states and Centre.”

Official sources, however, said work was not affected and employees attended the offices.

A senior official of the state government claimed there was 99% attendance at several departments housed in the New Secretariat and Nabanna (state secretariat).

"We have 99% attendance today in almost all departments at the New Secretariat, Nabanna," he said.

The state government has also asked all heads of departments to send a list of those employees who skipped attending office today (Friday) to the Chief Secretary by 5 PM, a senior bureaucrat said.

"The departmental heads have been asked to send a list of names of all those employees who remained absent from office today. They were asked to send the list to the Chief Secretary by 5 PM," he said.

In Medinipur College, Paschim Medinipur, North Bengal University, Siliguri and Siksha Bhavan, the agitators, belonging to DSO and BJP, respectively, shouted slogans at the main gate and forcibly tried to stop the students and employees from entering office at around 10 a.m.

This led to altercation and exchange of fisticuffs between the supporters of ruling party and the agitators. All major opposition parties - CPI(M), Congress and BJP are supporting the strike called by state government employees while the ruling Trinamool Congress has accused the Opposition of disrupting work culture in the state in the name of movement while not standing by the side of the cash- starved state.

Members of the Jadavpur University Teachers Association (JUTA) observed a half-day ceasework in support of the strike call given by the state government employees.

The Mamata Banerjee administration had said no leave will be allowed on March 10 and the absence will be treated as a break in service.

According to an order issued by the state Finance department on Thursday, all state government offices including those provided with grants-in-aid by the state such as educational institutions shall remain open on March 10 and all employees will report for duty on that day.

"No casual leave or any other kind of leave for absence either in the first half of the day or in the second half or for the whole day shall be granted to any employee on March 10," the order said.

"Absence of employees on that day will be treated as dies-non (break in service) and no salary will be admissible unless such absence is covered by hospitalisation of the employees or if there is bereavement in the family, severe illness and absence continuing prior to March 9," it said.

However, no action will be taken against employees who had been on child care leave, maternity leave, medical leave and earned leave sanctioned before March 9, according to the order.

The protesting employees of 18 organisations, who have been demanding that DA be raised to the level of what their counterparts in the central government get, stuck to the decision of holding the strike.

"Whatever step the government takes, we will observe the strike," said one of the leaders of the agitating organisation.

They recently held a 48-hour pen-down agitation on this issue, ignoring warnings of action, while several employees are on a hunger strike near Sahid Minar which continued till Friday.

West Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose expressed hope that all those involved in the matter would find a suitable solution.