Teachers and Government employees massive stir halt Chennai traffic

Private vehicles ferrying government employees began thronging the city since morning and at one point the inflow became uncontrollable by the cops, though a team of policemen was posted on all important roads and junctions as early as 6 am.

The surroundings of Chepauk, from where the rally was supposed to begin and to proceed towards the Secretariat, witnessed commotion as the private vehicles occupied most of the roads, leaving very little or no space for motorists to crawl through the narrow paths. While police said nearly 40,000 men and women in about 32 buses, 160 vans, 40 cars and 13 tempo travellers were parked on Kamarajar Salai from Lighthouse to Anna Square, participants said that the actual numbers are five times of what police admit. “About 1.75 lakh people managed to reach the protest venue and almost 40,000 people were stopped at different toll gates,” said a participant.

Thousands gathered at Chepauk on Saturday to participate at the protest organised by Joint Action Council of Teachers Organisations-Government Employees Organisations (JACTO-GEO) to bring the government’s attention to their long-pending demands.

JACTO GEO is a conglomeration of 73 different teacher and employee unions. “We have three major demands: We want the discontinuance of the new pension scheme and reinstallation of the old scheme in its place. Secondly, ahead of the eighth pay commission recommendations, 20 per cent increment should be given as interim relief till the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission are implemented,” said P K Ilamaran, state president of Tamil Nadu Teachers Association that was part of the protest.

“There has been a long delay by the government in addressing employee welfare issues. “We want the government to consider the irregularities in the current pay scale and implement the Pay Commission recommendations as soon as possible,” said S. Venkatesh, a teacher.

Talking about the future course of action, Illamaran says. “We had thousands of government employees joining the protest on Saturday and we are hoping that the government will heed to our demands. We are expecting a response by August 21, failing which we will organise a one-day strike on August 22. If we still don’t hear from the government till September 6, then we will go on an indefinite strike