Crisis averted as Metro workers call off strike; pay hike approved
ON TRACK Move to benefit 9,000 nonexecutive staff of DMRC, relief came after series of meetings over weekend
Metro trains in the Capital will run as usual on Monday, with employees of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) calling off their strike.
The announcement came after the corporation agreed to the demands of its protesting non-executive employees that included revising their salary slabs. The DMRC has about 9,000 non-executive staff, who perform important duties of train operators, station in-charge, traffic controllers, technicians, maintenance and other jobs.
In the meeting held on Sunday, the DMRC agreed to upgrade the pay scales of non-executive staff in grade ₹8,000-₹14,140 to the next grade. Apart from this, the DMRC also agreed to their demand of merging the grade of ₹13,500-₹25,520 and ₹14,000-₹26,950. “A new pay scale of ₹20,600-₹46,500 shall be introduced, which will be the apex level for non-executive staff,” read the minutes of the meeting, a copy of which is with Hindustan Times.
At present, the basic pay of non-executive staff in DMRC varies from ₹8,000 to ₹14,140.
These employees had been protesting by holding sit-ins at various platforms over the past three days. On Monday, they had threatened to shut all Metro services by not reporting to work.
The corporation also agreed to drop all negative points issued from April 17 till date to the employees. Negative points restrict an employee’s annual increment. It also agreed to drop the chargesheet filed on the Staff Council members who had taken part in the protests held earlier on the same issue.
“Another point that was agreed upon is that the Staff Council shall be broadly treated like a union on condition that no outside influence will be allowed in the council,” said Anil Kumar Mahato, secretary Staff Council.
“The ongoing protest by DMRC’s non-executive employees was called off today (Sunday) after all the issues raised by the agitating employees were amicably settled following many rounds of meetings and deliberations with DMRC’s managing director, Dr Mangu Singh and other senior officials,” said Anuj Dayal, chief spokesperson at DMRC.
“In light of the above, the Delhi Metro services will continue as per schedule tomorrow (Monday),” he added.
The crisis was averted after a series of meetings held over the weekend between the Metro’s staff council, DMRC’s top officials, Delhi government officials and the secretary at the ministry of urban development.
“The issue was also deliberated in detail yesterday (Saturday) in a high-level meeting chaired by secretary MoUD, DS Mishra and Delhi chief secretary Dr MM Kutty with DMRC’s managing director,” Dayal said.