Hyderabad, August 07: The people of Telangana will be in a fix again with the Telangana Employees JAC leaders remaining adamant and government also neglecting them, relying on the ESMA handle.
Labour Minister Danam Nagender categorically stated before media persons at the Secretariat on Saturday that apart from the essential commodities like rice, wheat, salt etc, fee reimbursement also is an essential service in the absence of which poor students suffer.
He came in defence of Departments being brought under ESMA as it was taken as a precautionary measure to help people sustain their livelihood. The students’ unions also protested over the Finance Department coming under the purview of ESMA.
An argument put forth by the leaders of all hues pushed the government particularly the Minister to the wall.
It was pointed out that the state government imported Australian wheat in 2007 when shortage was experienced in the state.
Similarly in 2007, onion import was affected to tide over the crisis due to scarcity of the said commodity.
On the same lines it was contested that the post-metric scholarships and fee reimbursement was equally important as far as poor students were concerned, Mr Nagender opined.
The Minister’s concern is praise-worthy.
If the students move the court over non-payment of fee and scholarship where does the government stand?.
It was clarified that the Finance Department was brought under ESMA mainly to escape the ‘handicap’ of non-payment of salaries more so to higher ups like Chief Minister and so on.
In this connection, it was pointed that the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj of the Bharatiya Janata Party commented on non-payment of pay to the Chief Minister when the TJAC of employees struck work for 22 days in February / March this year. It was ironical.
But according to reliable sources, it was made known that the TJAC of Employees, Teachers, Workers decided to go on strike from August 17, for the reason that the departments concerned in Secretariat begin their work on establishment (payment of salaries calculation etc ) from the said date.
The work related to payment of salaries would be completed by month ending if the staff concerned start the said strike from August 17. That is the deadline date for completing figure work/ calculations.
And that is exactly the reason why the government is keen on arriving at a solution for appeasing the TJAC leaders. In view of the deadlock over the talks between the group of ministers and the TJAC leaders, a delicate situation has arisen again much to the embarrassment of the government once again as the situation was being watched keenly throughout the country.
Only the time factor will decide who will gain the upper hand. As of now the government was in no mood to listen to the TJAC leaders’ plea to reverse the decision on ESMA.
——Agencies