It's black day for government staff

It's black day for government staff

Over 19 lakh state government employees across Maharashtra have decided, as a mark of protest, to wear black today.

They are angry because the state governmenmt has denied them dearness allowance (DA). The state finance department recently issued a government resolution (GR), stating that the DA would be payable from November 1 instead of July 1, as was originally promised by the central government.

Since the employees would get even November's DA in December, effectively, the state has denied them the arrears on five months' DA, employees say. Upset, the State Government Employee Confederation have decided to launch a statewide protest against the government's failure by declaring October 30 as a black day.

The union has instructed all government employees to wear black. The employees will then hold a dharna at Mantralaya during lunch hours.

The Assistant General Secretary for the employees union, Sunil Joshi, said, "Each of us had to bear a loss of around Rs 5,000. We are holding a state wide agitation." To make it worse, while the state government employees are being refused what is rightfully theirs, the BMC employees are getting a Diwali bonus of Rs 6,000 each.

Joshi said that "If the state government doesn't listen to them, we will be forced to call for a strike that will include primary school teachers, non-teaching staff and other employees." State finance minister Sunil Tatkare could not be contacted.

Source: Mid-day