हिंदी
(Bikram S Majithia asks CM to dismiss FM Manpreet Badal imm, saying FM had lost confidence of employees because of his anti-employee approach)
(Demands all allowances which had been slashed including NPA and HRA be restored)
(Says arrears of employees should be released in full in one go and not staggered over five years)
Chandigarh, June 23 2021 The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today asked the Congress government to convene a special session of the Vidhan Sabha immediately to explain the fraud meted out to State government employees in the name of the 6th Pay Commission even as it demanded that all cases of injustice pointed out by employee associations be corrected within one month.
Disclosing this in a statement here, SAD senior leader Bikram Singh Majithia said chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh should explain why allowances of various categories of employees had been stopped altogether and why different categories of employees had been created in the Punjab government by enforcing the Central Pay Commission on new recruits. “The chief minister should also tell why thousands of contractual employees, whom he had committed to regularize five years back, were still not regularized till now”.
Mr Bikram Majithia also demanded the immediate dismissal of finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal. “Employees across the State have expressed their no confidence in the finance minister by holding a pen down strike followed by a walk out from government offices. The agitation is expected to intensify in the coming days with the employee federations announcing a week long agitation plan. Government functioning has been partially paralyzed already. The employees do not have any faith that Mr Manpreet Badal will redress their grievances due to his anti-employee approach. Therefore the chief minister should sack the finance minister immediately so that rapprochement talks with the employees can be initiated as quickly as possible”.
The SAD leader also demanded a probe into the entire recommendations made by the 6th Pay Commission. “It seems that not only employees but even the government has been deceived as the Pay Commission report which is being sold as a bonanza for employees while it in fact discriminates against them”. Mr Majithia also demanded that Non Practicing Allowance (NPA) of doctors, which had been slashed, should be restored in full. He also demanded that other allowances which had been slashed severely, including House Rent Allowance (HRA) and Rural Area Allowance should be brought back. He also condemned abolition of the Conveyance Allowance and called for its immediate restoration.
Mr Majithia said it was also shocking that benefits given to a majority section of employees by the earlier SAD led government were being taken back and employees who had been benefitted earlier by the SAD government were being asked to take a cut in salaries. He also condemned the government decision to release the arrears due to employees in a staggered manner in the next five years. He demanded that government release the Rs 13,500 crore due to employees immediately, saying the employees had been waiting for these arrears for four and a half years already.
Asserting that the SAD had been raising the issues of employees and the discrimination being meted out to them in each assembly session, Mr Majithia said “we demand the Congress government call an immediate session and tell Punjabis why it had discriminated against employees and their families in this manner”. He also announced that the SAD would start an agitation to demand justice for employees in case all their grievances were not resolved within one month.
