Ministerial staff accuse state govt of making false promises

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, September 18

Accusing the government of making false promises, members of the Bathinda unit of the Punjab State Ministerial Service Union burnt its effigy near the DC office here on Wednesday.

Addressing the protesters, union leaders said ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the state government on March 10 when the code of conduct had come into force had promised to accept their several demands. They said the government had also ensured them that immediately after the code of conduct gets over, their demands would be implemented. The leaders said for other demands, the government had assured them of constituting a committee. They added that after the polls, the government ran away from their promises.

The union leaders said they had also given a notice to the state government asking it to fulfill its promise by September 15, but to no avail.

State president of the union Megh Singh Sidhu said, “The government should immediately release the last three instalments of dearness allowance and other pending dues. Besides, it should implement the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission and restore the old pension scheme for those recruited after 2004. Union members have also been demanding treatment of probation period as qualifying service, implementation of the ‘same work, same wages’ rule, withdrawal of Rs200 as development tax, implementation of cashless health scheme and regularisation of contractual employees’ services on a priority basis.”