Dehradun: Government employees in
Uttarakhand on Thursday called off their month-long agitation
following acceptance of most of their demands, including
better pay scales.
The standoff between the 30,000 striking employees and
the government came to end last night following prolonged
discussions, Principal Secretary Shatrughan Singh said.
T S Pundir, President of Uttarakhand Federation of
Ministerial Services Association (UFMSA), said the government
has accepted the demand of higher pay scales.
A high-level committee is being constituted to took into
the main demand of converting the Rs 4000-7000 payscale into
Rs 5000-8000, he said.
Even after getting the benefits of the sixth pay
commission, the ministerial services employees, were on an
indefinite strike for the past one month, demanding fatter pay
packets.
The government had earlier asked the employees to either
return to work or face dire consequences and even threatened
to invoke ESMA.
The state government has already implemented the sixth
pay commission with retrospective effect from Jan 1, 2006,
giving benefits to nearly 1.63 lakh employees and over 40,000
pensioners, putting an annual burden of Rs 4,000 crore on the
state exchequer.
PTI
First Published: Thursday, February 11, 2010, 13:16