Jammu, November 24
Functioning in state government offices and hospitals throughout Jammu and Kashmir virtually came to a standstill as more than two lakh employees went on a two-day strike today in support of their demand for the release of pending instalments of dearness allowance and its 50 per cent merger in the basic pay. They are also demanding that the daily-wage workers should be paid their arrears of the past over eight months.
The government hospitals and medical colleges handled only emergency cases and the OPDs remained closed. There was hardly any work in the Secretariat and other offices in the Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh regions.
The state government has refused to accept the demand of the employees immediately, but this afternoon constituted a three-member committee to look into these demands and submit a report within three weeks.
Mr Vijay Bakaya, Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister, will be chairman of the committee while Mr B.R. Kundal, Finance Secretary, and Mr S.L. Bhat, Secretary, GAD, will be the members.
The Finance Minister, Mr Muzaffar Hussain Baig, was closeted with senior officers of the Finance Department in the guest house of J&K Bank throughout the day, discussing implications of the merger of DA. The Information Department asked all mediapersons in the afternoon to reach the guest house where the minister was likely to make some important announcement. However, on reaching the venue, they were informed that there was no briefing.
Reports said the employees did not work in the offices and senior officers sat helplessly.
Most of the ministers were also without any staff working for them in the Secretariat. There was a complete strike even in the offices in the mountainous region of Ladakh.
The Chief Minister, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, had recently said the merger of DA would result in an additional financial burden of about Rs 350 crore per annum. He was pursuing the matter with the Centre for the past four months, but there had not been a positive response so far.
The Prime Minister’s package of Rs 24,000 crore to the state also did not have any provision for this purpose, an official spokesman said.
The state government was trying to persuade the employees to withdraw the strike by pointing out that not even half a dozen of the states have so far merged the DA with the basic pay.
Meanwhile, the state BJP president, Dr Nirmal Singh, while extending support to the employees’ strike, has urged the state government to accept their “genuine” demand.
He said the demand should have been accepted long ago as the employees were facing a steep inflation under the present regime.
