Chandigarh, October 27: Various services relating to sanitation, education and health departments were affected across Haryana on Friday when employees associated with 42 unions went on a mass casual leave in support of the ongoing roadways strike.
Services were badly hit in Karnal, Kurukshetra and Yamunanagar districts while the response was mixed in Rohtak, Sonepat, Jind, Jhajjar, Bhiwani and Rewari.
However, there was partial impact to the services in response to the call of the Haryana Sarvkarmchari Sangh, the umbrella body of employees’ unions, to go on mass casual leave.
Haryana Sarvkarmchari Sangh general secretary Subhash Lamba claimed that most of employees of different departments remained on mass casual leave on Friday.
He said the Sangh members would hold a meeting on Saturday to decide the next course of action.
Meanwhile, the support to the roadways employees from other unions as their strike entered the 11th day has posed a major challenge to the Manohar LalKhattar-led BJP government in the election year. Assembly elections are due in the state next year.
Chief secretary DS Dhesi reviewed the situation and got feedback from the online attendance dashboard.
As per the online attendance, only 1.18 lakh of the total registered 3.80 lakh employees in the state marked their attendance on Friday.
However, as per officials, the average attendance was short by about 2,000, as the daily attendance is usually 1.2 lakh.
In Haryana power utilities, only 17,987 of 34,000 employees marked the presence on Friday. The absence in power utilities was about 47%.
The roadways employees are protesting against the government’s move to induct 700 private buses, which they allege is a step towards privatisation of the department and would benefit a chosen few.
The government refutes their allegations, saying the move is in favour of employees, people and the government.
They have been on strike since October 16 even as the Essential Services Maintenance Act (Esma) is in force in the state. They had on Thursday extended the strike till October 29.
Hundreds of employees of various government held demonstrations and took out a protest march under the banner of Haryana Sarvkarmchari Sangh in Karnal, Kurukshetra and Yamunanagar in support of demands of roadways employees.
The services in the government departments remained affected as people were seen struggling to get their work done.
Even, the studies in government schools remained hit as students had to return from the schools as there were no teachers in several schools. Five members of the Sangh started a hunger strike in Karnal.
The employees of various organizations under the banner of Haryana Karamchari Mahasangh held a demonstration and took out a protest march in the city.
They threatened “further shutdown of services” if the demands were not met.
The impact of the demonstration was, however partially seen in services.
Many organisations, such as the auto-rickshaw union of Haryana, announced on Friday to refrain from supporting the strike saying it was politically motivated and not issue-based.
The services of revenue department remained disrupted with all patwaris (land revenue officers) and kanungo (land record officials) held demonstrations in favour of the roadways union.
The sanitation services were also partially hit after the sanitation workers went on strike.
Though there was no disruption witnessed in power supply in Hisar, Sirsa and Fatehabad, health services were partially hit.
Source Hindustan Times
