Tarn Taran: Para-medical staff protest stopping of allowances

Our Correspondent

Tarn Taran, December 17

It was a day of protests by different employees of government departments in the town here on Friday.

The suspending of a number of allowances to state government employees was opposed by en masse, affecting the functioning in government offices.

A section of the employees was already sitting on an agitation demanding the regularisation of their services. Nurses are already on the agitation path demanding removal of anomalies in pay scales and other demands.

Most of the para-medical staff of the Health Department abstained from their duties and organised a rally in the local Civil Hospital. Employees across the district participated in the protest against stopping of their allowances. While addressing on the occasion, Virsa Singh Pannu, Lakhwinder Kaur Johal, Kulwant Kaur, Rajwant Singh Bagrian and other leaders said their night duty, uniform, rural area, handicap allowance and others allowances had been suspended as per the pay commission report.

The protesting employees took out a march in the town and burnt an effigy of the state government at Chaunk Bohri in the heart of the town. The leaders warned the government that in case the suspended allowances were not reinstated, they would go on an indefinite strike and the functioning of the department would be greatly hit. National Health Mission (NHM) employees, who are on an indefinite strike, too marched through the town. Jasbir Singh Ghariala, district president of the NHM Employees’ Association, said their employees pasted posters, reading ‘jhooth’, ‘jhooth’, ‘jhooth’ (untruth), on the hoardings installed in the town claiming to regularise the services of 36,000 employees.

Nurses of the Health Department too had been on an indefinite strike for the last 13 days, demanding the removal of anomalies in their pay scales. The district unit of the PCMS Association extended support to various paramedical associations. Dr Jaspreet Singh, district chief, PCMS Association, said instead of rewarding the selfless services rendered by the staff, the government had paid no heed to their just demands.