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Government staff ignore appeal, to besiege Secretariat
The stir is likely to throw the state administration out of gear.
By
migrator
migrator
Chennai
Even as the state government on Monday renewed its appeal to over 19 lakh families of employees on roll and pensioners to support the government considering the perks and the recent hike in respect of implementation of the Pay Commission recommendations, JACTTO-GEO, which has been pressing a charter of demands announced that it would go ahead with the stir as planned while dismissing the appeal as hogwash.
The stir is likely to throw the state administration out of gear.
The forum charged the state to have arm-twisted the travel operators who had earlier agreed to ferry the protesters to Chennai to cancel the reservations.
Speaking to DT Next, the forum’s coordinator K Venkatesan confirmed that they had decided to go ahead with their stir. “We were initially planning to mobilise nearly 1.5 lakh employees from across the state to gherao the Secretariat.
Since we could not get enough vehicles to ply the employees and teachers to the state Secretariat, we are expecting a turnout of at least 50,000 staff to participate in the event. The stir would begin at 10 am as planned,” the office bearer of Secretariat Association said.
The forum’s members also chided Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar who made the appeal on behalf of the state.
The Minister who also holds the portfolio of Personnel and Administrative Reforms has claimed that that the state has spent as much as Rs 65,403 crore out of Rs 93,795 crore of total revenue receipts were spent towards salaries and pension for state government employees and teachers during the fiscal 2017-2018.
“This account for nearly 70 per cent of the revenue receipts being utilised to meet the salary and pension benefits for as many as 19.42 lakh families.
While the state spends the rest 24 per cent towards interest for loans availed, the state spends a meagre of 6 per cent along with central devolution of Rs 41,600 crore towards welfare schemes and infrastructure development for the citizens of the state,” Jayakumar said.
Another office-bearer, who is part of the JACTTO-GEO, noted that the Minister has conveniently crunched the numbers in the appeal without factoring the just demands of provisioning the rightful payment of arrears and as well as the reinstatement of the old pension scheme.
State instigating police to arrest teachers, accuses PMK
The Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) has accused the government of fomenting the police department to arrest the leaders of the JACTO-GEO.
In a statement on Monday, PMK MP Anbumani Ramadoss lashed out at the government saying, “JACTO-GEO associations already announced protests in the city on May 8 demanding to disburse 21-month arrears, as per seventh-pay commission. Sensing the protest, the government has instigated the police department to arrest main representatives of the JACTO-GEO to prevent an agitation.” Stating that the demands of government employees are just, Anbumani said, “The employees did not place any new demand and all their demands remain long-pending.
To sort out the issues, the government should call for the representatives of associations; instead it started hunting for leaders of the association during night to arrest them by instigating the police.” Everyone has a right to protest and handling the agitation by force is an unlawful act, the PMK leader said. “Even as the government earlier held meeting with the representatives and assured of fulfilling their demands, such assurance was given to end the strike then,” he said.
As Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar appealed to the teaching fraternity to give up the agitation, he did not sense the just demands of the protest, Anbumani noted.
“The Minister also boasted that the government is paying more amounts to the government employees at the tax payers cost so that demands of teachers should not be accepted.”
Recounting attack on teachers in 2003 during former chief minister J Jayalalithaa’s regime, he said that the government finally buckled. Anbumani stressed that the government should accept their demands.
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