West Bengal Bans Protests During Tiffin Break

Kolkata: West Bengal government employees have been prohibited from protesting even during tiffin breaks. 

According to a circular, signed by the finance department’s additional chief secretary, protesting employees would be marked absent. Moreover, employees can’t leave the office during working hours.

This circular comes after the department of personnel and training prohibited government servants from participating in strikes around two months ago.

CPI(M) Rajya Sabha member and senior lawyer MP Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya said that the circular “won’t withstand the test of law” if it is appealed against. “It is the employee’s prerogative to spend the tiffin break he likes. This state government’s decision is totally autocratic,” he told Newsclick.

Biswajit Gupta Choudhury, general secretary of Joutha Manch, the coordination committee of state government employees, called the decision a “direct attack on the constitutional rights of government employees”. “We won’t allow that to happen.”

State government employees have been protesting for a hike in their dearness allowance (DA). Last week, chief minister Mamata Banerjee alleged that the ongoing protest for a DA hike was responsible for the 36,000 primary teachers in state-sponsored and aided schools losing their jobs.

Banerjee had also called the demand for a DA hike unwarranted and insisted that its disbursement is the government’s discretion. She also alleged that members of families supporting the Trinamool Congress (TMC) would not get employment due to the presence of coordination committee members in the Public Service Commission.

However, Choudhury said that the court’s decision to terminate 36,000 teachers is “unrelated” to the protest. “While the employees sympathise with the dismissed teachers, they want a proper and fair entrance examination.”

Choudhury also rubbished Banerjee’s claim that the Public Service Commission does not favour members of families supporting the TMC due to the presence of coordination committee members.

“Merit-based criteria are the sole determinants of employment. Members of our organisation serve in the Public Service Commission, but is its chairman a coordination committee member or a political appointee? The chief minister opposes merit-based criteria,” he added.

On May 4, more than 25,000 government employees from various districts rallied outside the State Secretariat to demand a substantial hike in DA. Dissatisfied with the 3% increase, they believe it is significantly less than the 38% DA given to Central government employees.