Government employees went on protest on Tuesday demanding that the State government address their 71-point list of grievances at once. As part of their agitation, the employees turned up to work wearing black badges across the State.
Government employee associations had set a deadline of December 7 to the government to meet their demands. Stating that the government’s response to their demands was lukewarm, the employees went ahead with their agitation as announced a week ago.
AP-JAC State president Bandi Srinivasa Rao said that they were only demanding that the government fulfil their 71 genuine demands.
“The government announced only two dearness allowance (DA) payouts out of the pending seven DAs. The agitation will not stop even if the government invokes the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act, 2019. The government should have announced the PRC with 55% fitment. The government was being requested to address the employees’ issues since July but in vain. Never in my service did I see employees having to ask for their salaries to be paid on the first of every month. The government is indifferent,” Mr. Srinivasa Rao said.
Bopparaju Venkateswarlu said that they have been requesting the government to make the Pay Revision Commission (PRC) report public. “The government was also requested to announce the DAs. The promises made to the employees were not kept. Hence, the employees were forced to launch the protest. The black badge protest would continue till December 10,” Mr. Venkateswarlu said, adding that they would participate in lunch-hour demonstrations at all offices, schools, and APSRTC depots on December 10.
On December 13, protest rallies would be organised. On December 16, dharnas would be conducted from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Divisional-level conferences would be conducted at Visakhapatnam, Tirupati, Eluru and Ongole on December 27, 30, January 3 and 6 respectively, he said.
Published - December 07, 2021 11:57 pm IST
