Chandigarh, February 10: The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today said it would agitate to force the sleeping Congress government to release 22 per cent Dearness Allowance to State employees, besides immediate release of the Sixth Pay Commission report and regularisation of 27, 000 employees.
In a statement here former finance minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa asked the Congress government to come clean and tell why it was not releasing four instalments of DA amounting to a total of Rs 4,000 crore. He said when the fifth instalment of DA was due now the government had “approved” release of one instalment of only 6 per cent. “This is a pittance considering that this approval amounts to only a two per cent increase on the recommendations of the seventh central pay commission”.
Asking the Congress government not to play games with employees and try to befool them as it had befooled and betrayed farmers, youth and Dalits, Mr Dhindsa said the government should give interim relief to employees immediately by hiking the basic pay by 10 per cent after merging DA with it. “We will agitate to make this a reality”, he added.
Mr Dhindsa also lambasted the Congress government for deliberately delaying release of the report of the sixth Punjab Pay Commission. He said instead of giving relief to State employees by directing the Commission to submit its report immediately, the government had extended its term.
The Akali leader said employees had also been demanding regularization of services of all 27,000 contractual employees who had been identified by the previous SAD-BJP government and for whom the Punjab Adhoc, Contractual, Daily wage, Temporary, Work Charged and Outsourced Employees’ Welfare Bill, 2016 was also passed after convening a special assembly session. He said it was unfortunate that the Congress government was refusing to implement the Act. He also condemned reduction in salaries of RMSA and SSA teachers.
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