Thaindian News

Jammu, April 3 (IANS) More than 450,000 government employees of Jammu and Kashmir Saturday began a four-day strike demanding payment of arrears due to them as per the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission.
The strike paralysed work in almost all government offices across the state, though essential services like hospitals, public health engineering and power supply continued to operate.

“This strike will last till April 6 and if the government fails to accept our demands by that time, we would chalk out a new strategy to pressurise the government to deliver on the promises made to the employees last year,” Abdul Qayoom, leader of the Jammu and Kashmir Government Employees Joint Action Committee, told a rally of the striking employees here.

“We are not asking for something that is extraordinary. We are asking for our dues and that too what the government has promised us,” he said.

The employees struck work after talks between the state government and the employees’ leaders failed to reach a middle path.

Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather had told employees’ leaders Friday that the “state government is willing to pay arrears to employees, but there is no money. We have pleaded the case before the centre, but the money is not in sight.”

The employees, however, are not convinced. “The government should have known its position when it made a promise to give us our dues last year. Now after one year, we are being told that there is no money to meet our demand,” Qayoom said.

“Rather had pleaded before the union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee early this week that the central government release Rs.4,120 crore to Jammu and Kashmir to pay arrears to its employees. But the centre has not accepted the demand as of now,” an official source told IANS.

“Chief Minister Omar Abdullah is in Delhi. He is likely to take up the issue with the central leadership,” the source added.

The employees were promised that salaries as per recommendations of the sixth pay commission would be paid to them after the assembly elections in November-December 2008. The hiked salary was given to the employees from August 1, 2009, but the arrears due to them from Jan 1, 2006, to July 31, 2009, have not been paid.