Hyderabad, Janaury 14: With little response from the state government to its demands, the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of Employees, Teachers and Workers has decided to observe ‘pen down’ strike in all government offices and schools from January 19 to 21.
The government employees will intensify their protests after January 24 if the state government fails to fulfil all their demands. Though the employees have planned to go on strike two months ago, it was postponed twice after the then chief minister K Rosaiah resigned to the post and the present chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy sought some time to get acquainted to the post. Despite stiff opposition from the JAC, the state government constituted a Cabinet sub-committee to look into various demands of the employees. To win confidence of the employees, the chief minister even issued an order for increasing the house rent allowance (HRA).
The Cabinet sub-committee which met yesterday is positively considering three demands including issuing health cards to all employees, teachers, workers and pensioners for cashless treatment, and regularisation of posts in sericulture and panchayat raj departments.
“We have nothing to do with the decisions of the Cabinet sub-committee as we were never in favour of it. We waited for a long time and now, want our demands resolved immediately failing which we will not hesitate to launch a full-fledged strike across the state,” said JAC chairman V Gopal Reddy.
The employees, teachers, workers and pensioners have been demanding the state government for fulfilling their 11-point charter of demands like filling of four lakh vacancies in all government departments across the state, abolishing outsourcing, regularisation of jobs, hike in house rent allowance, and doing away with the apprentice system for teachers.
–Agencies