FCI staff protest over wage revision

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, May 25

Members of the Bharatiya Khadya Nigam Karamchari (BKNK) Sangh, the nationally recognised union of the Food Corporation of India, organised a lunch-hour demonstration outside its district office located at the grain market on Friday.

The protest was against the management and Government of India for alleged unjust treatment to FCI employees.

District president of the BKNK Sangh, Sukhvir Singh, and general secretary Om Prakash Mehra said the protest was being staged due to various issues being faced by the FCI employees.

They said the issues included unreasonable delay in wage revision (due since January 1, 2017), negotiations for Category-III and IV employees, non-approval of proposal of wage revision of Category-I and II employees and compassionate ground appointments pending for a long time.

They added that the FCI was working with only half of its required and sanctioned staff strength but were not even being paid on a par with its industry peers.

They said that a majority of burden of work was on the field staff, who work under poor and unhygienic conditions in godowns and railheads.

“The field staff are also harassed by imposition of heavy penalties on the pretext of storage loss, rail transit loss, minor quality control issues and other unjustified reasons,” they said.

BKNK Sangh workers Gurpreet Singh, Pitambar Bharti, Arvinderjit Singh, Jaswinder Singh and others also participated and said the BKNK Sangh would not end the protest till the time their demands were not met and the management didn’t pass the resolution of early implementation of wage revision.

Staff working in ‘poor’ conditions

They said the issues included unreasonable delay in wage revision (due since January 1, 2017), negotiations for Category-III and IV employees, non-approval of proposal of wage revision of Category-I and II employees and compassionate ground appointments pending for a long time. 

The protesters said a majority of burden of work was on the field staff, who work under poor and unhygienic conditions in godowns and railheads.